Keeping Everybody Safer
Technology is indeed a double-edged sword. Essentially, it fixes problems, but new ones develop which must be addressed. It’s sort of a “two steps forward, one step back” situation. That said, there are areas of technology that tend to have more benefits than detriments. By many accounts, one of these areas is public safety. GPS location and satellite surveillance can help find people who are lost. Geofencing can narrow down where particular smartphone signals are coming from, and the list goes on. In this writing, we’ll focus on public safety software specifically, and how it benefits the public at large by making things more safe.
1. More Accurate Information Capture and Application
When you can capture information easier, you can put it to good use, and that helps protect people. To that end, in police agencies, dispatch logging recorder software helps collect and organize varying calls for later reference. Details can be confirmed, and aspects of a situation can be discovered through a review of such recordings which may bring proper justice.
Generally, it’s a good idea to consolidate all information in a single place where it can be easily referenced and securely stored. It’s the difference between typing in a search engine query and walking through stacks of dossiers in a library. The digital option is easier, faster, more convenient, less expensive, and better by many accounts.
2. Data Collection to Help Establish Safe Trends in the Future
When you collect data digitally and store it securely, you’re building an abstract picture. Think of it like an outline, or an impression. You’re “filling in the dots”, as it were. Basically, this data can reveal trends and the like which otherwise would be invisible. Fractals were discovered in this way. (In a nutshell, fractals are shapes built into numbers that computers made visible.)
Similarly, data properly collected and maintained can reveal social trends which help public safety agencies more efficiently protect the public.
3. Reduced Future Crime Owing to the Perception of Perpetrators
When you can identify trends and enact safety measures in response to those trends, you’ll reduce crime. This communicates a message to criminal perpetrators collaterally. This was seen in the nineties into the early oughts, specifically in New York City. There, police precincts began cracking down on petty crime, which sent a message to criminals.
Thieves noticed that cops weren’t letting things slide like they used to, and so began exercising more caution and avoiding things like vandalism or petty assault. Certainly, crime didn’t totally disappear, but NYC saw a golden age for a few years as a result.
Well, similarly, tech which allows you to get ahead of criminal trends communicates caution to perpetrators, collaterally reducing the crimes they perpetrate.
4. Public Safety More Prepared for Coming Tech Breakthroughs
When you’ve got the latest tech available, should new innovations develop, your public safety agency is ready to embrace them. If you’re not contemporary, then new tech means little, because the steps necessary to enjoy such breakthroughs is too expensive. Staying up-to-date keeps you ready and able to absorb and implement the latest changes.
Optimizing Social Cohesion and Freedom Through Tech
There’s a lot to recommend about utilizing software innovations throughout public safety agencies. Such agencies are able to maintain contemporaneous operations more conveniently, upgrading as soon as new innovations become available.
Crime can be collaterally reduced, data collection helps establish safer future safety management, and a more accurate capture of information can lead to a more effective distribution of justice. Altogether, upgrading public safety software is almost always worth it.
Author: Steven Kazinsky of Altitude Branding
