Springfield, Ill., Police Department Updates Records Management

The Springfield Police Department (SPD) works to serve and protect the city of Springfield, Ill.,'s 12,000 citizens. As the capital of Illinois and best known as the hometown of Abraham Lincoln, the SPD's 270 sworn officers are also responsible for providing safety to the city's 1 million annual visitors who come to see the historic sites the area has to offer.

Given the responsibility, SPD is constantly looking for ways to make its officers and detectives more efficient. One area where a need for improvement was identified was in the department's storage and retrieval of police incident reports and SPD turned to MSF&W Software and its ID:webArchive document imaging system for assistance.

Prior to the new system, SPD records staff retrieved hard-copy police reports, accident reports, drug and alcohol reports and supplemental reports from various departments throughout the facility. Totally manual access to these reports required personnel to locate files, make copies and archive additional reports as materials were produced. Paper copies were then disseminated to various SPD personnel and such other as the courts, state's attorney general and public defenders.

"The manual process required significant staff resources and was frustrating for detectives who needed timely access to reports," according to Deputy Chief Jim Burton. "Prior to the new system, detectives used to spend an average of