Tablets are replacing cruisers’ mounted laptops

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Mounted laptops have been standard operating equipment in police cruisers since the mid-90s. However, more police departments now are considering tablets for improved connectivity and flexibility not only inside the squad car but outside of it as well.

Police officers are discovering that rugged tablets let them seamlessly switch between applications such as electronic ticketing and documentation, photo evidence, and ID verification by the swipe of a finger.

This lets an officer document an event using a single, unified view for more accurate incident management records. As a result, officers can capture data more accurately as it uses a commercial technology that most cops are familiar with. The tablet speeds documentation, reduces costs associated with lost paperwork and increases access to back-office information. More important, it eliminates unauthorized modification of citations therefore reducing exposure to liability.

“Public safety agencies gain costs savings, improved accuracy and the ability to leverage data more proactively for more secure, effective communication”, experts say.

A recent report claims that when data is captured in the field using a tablet it is of higher quality compared to data entered from manual forms after the fact.

At the same time, field data entry may drastically reduce the amount of time that officers spend writing reports, which is estimated at as much as 20 percent of patrol time.

The experts quoted in Police.One say that there is no doubt having access to data outside of the squad car lets officers access information that can help them size up a situation.

Tablet use and officer safety go hand-in-hand, according to the IACP report. The report concluded that a fundamental objective for mobile computing is to provide the officer with a means of determining if persons are wanted or are otherwise a danger to the officer.

Having real-time access to data also increases officer confidence. The IACP report said the fact information needed by an officer is available on their notebook means they are armed with information anywhere.