Police agencies must lean on technology & younger officers going forward

It, however, does not necessarily all boil down to expensive data centres and “spy equipment,” although that could be part of it.

Lawrence says some of the changes made in recent years at LPS are for more day-to-day activities such as using a digital filing system and taking photos, notes, and audio statements on smartphones.

He also sees the potential in using dictation services that could automatically transcribe statements. He believes this could save a lot of time since hand-writing a lengthy statement could potentially take hours.

However, Lawrence realizes that dictation software is not always 100% accurate, but that is why they have back up measures in place.

“Any time we obtain a statement, it’s always reviewed and reviewed with the person who’s provided it just to ensure the accuracy before it is finalized. That goes for if it’s a written statement or an audio statement or dictated – there’s always that review period just to make sure it is all accurate.”

Technology could also play a major role in the way police officers are trained.

Lethbridge College currently offers a Virtual and Augmented Reality Certificate program. Lawrence said LPS has shown interest in working with the college to develop virtual reality (VR) simulations for the CJ program.

This could potentially mean that students would be able to investigate authentic and potentially dangerous situations while still being in a safe classroom environment.

“We can prepare and have scenarios, but every real-life scenario is unique, so what we try and do is give our officers the bones, I guess so-to-speak, of what they may encounter and give them the tools to, if there is an adaptation from the scenarios in training, they have the tools to deal with it.”

In the future, Lawrence believes police agencies need to adopt a more “bottom-up-top-down” model where the regular officers have a greater say in decision making as opposed to having all directives come solely from upper management.

“The old directive way of leadership is not, and this is my opinion, is not the most beneficial. We need to adapt to the generations who want to ask the questions, and it’s OK to ask why, and give reasons as to why we expect them to do this or why we’d like them to do things in certain ways.”

From his personal perspective, he says the younger generations are more tech-savvy than he could ever hope to be, so as advanced technology becomes a more integral part of law enforcement, Lawrence says they will lead the way into the future.

One area that Lawrence is particularly happy to see get a greater focus in recent years is mental health.

While LPS has implemented several programs that help police officers deal with traumatic events and fatigue, this is one area he says could use some more work.

The service is in the process of reviewing wellness web applications where people can access mental health resources or potentially speak to a psychologist over video chat.

Overall, Lawrence says LPS and southern Alberta’s other law enforcement agencies have come a long way since he first got into the industry more than 20 years ago.

He is excited about what the future holds.

by David Opinko

Police agencies must lean on technology & younger officers going forward

What's Happening