Recently, the Jefferson Police Department received funding to purchase a second in-car computer.
Police Chief Dave Morlan says the Panasonic Toughbook is a laptop computer that can withstand rugged law enforcement use such as driving on difficult terrain. He states that it also comes with two state-provided programs such as Traffic and Criminal Software and Mobile Architecture for Communications Handling.
TraCS is an electronic database that an officer can fill out an accident report or issue citations electronically while in the field. Morlan comments that currently, his officers have to go back to the Law Enforcement Center and fill it out paperwork by hand. It’ll allow officers more time on the road instead of having to report back to the station to do paperwork.
For MACH, a map shows where every other law enforcement personnel is at which improves officer safety. Morlan describes some other benefits of using MACH.
“It’ll improve the way they communicate with other agencies. If there was a major incident like an accident or something, instead of tying up the radio airwaves, they could be sending messages back and forth as to what’s going on. It also shows if an officer is in need of assistance, it would show the nearest law enforcement car around that would be on this MACH map.”
The Greene County Board of Supervisors donated $5,000 from the Louis Dreyfus fund and Morlan adds that with some of their estate money left to them by Shirley Wiggins, they were able to purchase the second computer system for $7,300.
Morlan points out that they used funds from the Wiggins estate, the Jefferson Firemen’s Association and the Greene County Community Foundation to help pay for the first unit.
The system includes a laptop, mounting equipment, a laser printer and a barcode scanner.
Of the four vehicles in service, Morlan notes that they only need two in-car computers for the two patrol vehicles that are on the road every hour of every day. The other two vehicles are his pickup and a spare vehicles that the department uses for transporting evidence or inmates and other such tasks.
The Greene County Sheriff’s office purchased the same equipment for all their vehicles for $37,000 earlier this summer.
Morlan is very grateful for all the support and adds that the first computer will be installed and operational by next week and the second unit will be installed before the end of this year.