Law enforcement agencies work with large amounts of data, often stored across siloed sources such as computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems, records management systems (RMS), jail management systems, automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) systems, and body-worn camera systems. With 4,000 sworn personnel protecting nearly 3 million residents, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) is no different.

“Like many organizations, we had a variety of disparate systems,” OCSD Chief Information Officer Dave Fontneau said. “We had a lot of legacy solutions. We had data all over the place. And the biggest challenge for most law enforcement agencies is, how do we get our arms around that data?”

Last month, OCSD and Peregrine hosted a masterclass featuring a panel of public safety leaders from around the county. The event encouraged a discussion about how Southern California agencies can best access, harness, and action their data. The masterclass’s panelists were:

• Dave Fontneau, Chief Information Officer, OCSD
• Capt. Oscar Garcia, Huntington Beach Police Department (HBPD)
• Carina Gomez, Senior Crime Analyst, Anaheim Police Department (APD)
• CJ Goddard, Senior Research Analyst, OCSD

Attendees included representatives from every Orange County agency and several Southern California agencies in other counties. As the discussion progressed, a few key themes emerged:

• Data integration tools make investigations faster.
• Automated analysis drives efficiency.
• Data sharing is key to collaborative public safety.
• Integration is key to real-time crime centers.
• Tech vendors should be strategic partners.

1. Data integration tools make investigations faster

“The day after patrol got trained, right away, we had a success story. That’s the efficiency we’re looking for in technology.” —Capt. Oscar Garcia, HBPD

With strained resources and no efficient way to search for connections between data sets, Capt. Garcia (HBPD) estimated his team only used 10% of the information they had available. But when the HBPD invested in Peregrine, Garcia said the platform acted as a “force multiplier” for the short-staffed agency, especially for patrol officers.

Rather than spending hours searching through records and cross-referencing information, the HBPD’s field officers can now find pertinent information with a single search. Garcia said Peregrine was easy to learn and produced tangible results immediately. For example, the day after the HBPD’s training on Peregrine for patrol, a patrol officer used Peregrine’s mobile app to identify a shooting suspect in a few minutes — something that previously would have taken days in the office.

The officer responded to a shooting and recovered a .22-caliber handgun. A witness gave a description of the suspect, and the officer ran the description through the Peregrine mobile app, searching for matching individuals who lived within a small radius of the incident. In seconds, Peregrine pulled up a record of someone who lived nearby and matched the witness's description.

Officers ran that individual through the Automated Firearm System and found that he owned a gun that matched the one recovered at the scene. The witness then confirmed the suspect’s identity.

"In regard to efficiency, especially when you don’t have enough people, getting that crime solved right away wouldn’t have been as easy to do with other systems we’ve had before,” Garcia said. But with Peregrine, “The day after patrol got trained, right away, we had a success story. That’s the efficiency we’re looking for in technology.”

2. Automated analysis drives efficiency

Crime analysts often spend hours manually pulling and formatting reports for investigators and command staff. But Gomez (APD) said Peregrine aids in investigations by automatically pulling data from integrated systems and displaying it in configurable dashboards that update in real time.

Peregrine alerts personnel of new cases that match certain search criteria. It also automates reporting to command staff; for example, Gomez uses Peregrine to produce a shootings report and a DUI arrest dashboard that go out to APD command staff each month. She added that having one simple, federated search for all data and a unified, interactive dashboard have been a “great success” in helping with investigative details and saved “hours and hours” of manual work for analysts.

Goddard (OCSD) added that Peregrine’s automations have saved her crime analysis team “hundreds of hours” finding, cleaning, and manually analyzing data. Plus, she added, Peregrine makes crime analysis more accessible to stakeholders outside of the crime analysis team.

For example, if an OCSD crime prevention specialist is attending a neighborhood watch meeting and wants to know about the crime happening in that particular neighborhood, they need to pull location-specific crime data. Previously, the specialist would have had to ask a crime analyst to extract that crime data, put it through the agency's mapping software, extract it again, and send it back to the specialist. But now, crime prevention specialists can use Peregrine to pull their own accurate, location-specific data in minutes.

3. Data sharing is key to collaborative public safety

“It's going to take all of us working together to push that envelope and really change the paradigm of the way we think about data and jurisdiction and collaboration.” —Dave Fontneau, CIO, OCSD

Each panelist agreed that interagency data sharing is one of the biggest challenges in modern law enforcement. Crime doesn’t adhere to jurisdictional lines, so data on transient crimes often lives in siloed data sources across multiple regional agencies.

“One of our biggest challenges as we move into 21st century technology is that the policing industry lags in sharing that disparate data,” Fontneau said.

Current methods of data sharing are inefficient, largely relying on phone calls and static spreadsheets — even in time-sensitive scenarios. But Fontneau envisions a “connected Southland,” where Southern California law enforcement agencies share resources, data, and insights to solve endemic issues. He hopes to eliminate jurisdictional boundaries “through relationships, collaboration, and state-of-the-art technology.”

To get more agencies on board with this vision, OCSD has spearheaded a data-sharing agreement to enable collaboration among their partner agencies, regardless of which technology solutions they use.

“It's going to take all of us working together to push that envelope and really change the paradigm of the way we think about data and jurisdiction and collaboration,” Fontneau said.

4. Integration is key for real-time crime centers

An increasing number of law enforcement agencies are investing in real-time crime centers to optimize their resources and solve crimes more efficiently. But each agency must build its RTCC around the department’s specific size, needs, and budget.

To design an RTCC on the “front edge of innovation,” OCSD formed a working group that toured RTCCs around the country. During this information-gathering tour, Fontneau identified a few crucial components to building a successful RTCC:

• Staffing. Some agencies hired all-sworn or all-civilian staff for their RTCCs. OCSD preferred a balance of sworn deputies and civilian analysts.
• Space. Build as big as you can, because your operation will likely expand over time.
• Connectivity. As OCSD transitions from an on-prem system to a cloud-native stack, connectivity is key. OCSD’s RTCC has six ways to connect to the internet, because if that connection falters, “you’re dead in the water.”

For any agency building an RTCC, the right technology is essential. RTCCs rely on a bevy of information, pulling from both internal and external sources, such as CCTV footage and ALPR data. RTCC personnel need access to immediate, accurate information to deliver crucial context to officers in the field. An effective data integration platform unifies information from disparate systems in a single pane of glass, providing a reliable common operating picture for RTCC personnel and field officers alike.

5. Tech vendors should be strategic partners

"We have a great voice, and we have much greater power together by demanding that open API, that data sharing model, from all of our technology partners.” —Dave Fontneau, CIO, OCSD

As agencies embrace new technologies and cross-jurisdictional collaboration, they need technology partners that can grow with them. Not all agencies have access to the same resources, but they shouldn't be limited by siloed systems that don’t communicate. A few key vendors are rising to the top, Fontneau said, by promoting data democratization, committing to interoperability, and offering configurable solutions for agencies with smaller budgets.

Fontneau said he interviews a prospective technology vendor just as he would a Sheriff’s Office candidate. He looks for strategic partners, not just vendors — companies that share his agency’s mission and become part of the team.

“These folks have ID cards. They have access to the facility,” he said. “We give them office space, and that’s a true partnership. It’s really a win-win.”

Fontneau only partners with technology companies that see the future of public safety as an interconnected landscape fueled by a commitment to open data practices.

"We have a great voice, and we have much greater power together by demanding that open API, that data sharing model, from all of our technology partners,” Fontneau said. “And we are making progress there, but we have to stick together, and we have to demand that.”

How Peregrine partners with public safety agencies

Peregrine enables seamless, secure data sharing among participating partner agencies, complete with granular, dynamic access controls and universal search capabilities across all shared systems.

We know each agency has its own challenges, priorities, and budget constraints. Our deployment strategists embed with our customer agencies to understand each department's needs so we can most effectively help them save time and resources.

To learn how Peregrine can support your agency's personnel, real-time operations, and collaborative efforts, download our e-book, 21st Century Policing.