Why Investing in AI-enabled Speech Technologies and DEMS Are a Wise Decision
In his Spring Budget 2024, the UK government's Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, committed £230 million to deliver pilot projects focused on innovative uses of police technology. Some of the ideas floated include, for example, using facial recognition, automating the triaging of 101 calls, and deploying drones as first responders. The idea is to take routine work off the shoulders of police officers, so they can devote more time to tackling crime. Meanwhile, a further £15 million has been allocated to introduce digital solutions that reduce administrative burdens on courts.
This new investment in policing comes almost a year since the Minister for Crime and Policing gave a speech signalling the government’s intention to cut red tape and free up police time to focus on solving crimes. Averaged out across the forty-three forces, the new funding equates to over five and a quarter million pounds per force.
So, the question is, how can this money be put to the best use to improve police productivity, so officers can better serve communities? Forces are looking to each other, and reputable policing industry groups for answers.
Key Productivity Barriers: Findings of the Police Productivity Review
Published in October 2023, the latest Police Productivity Review study, conducted by the National Police Chiefs’ Council at the request of the Home Office, cites a number of factors that are eating into officer productivity (see below). The study also affirmed how technology can boost productivity and eliminate stressors on officers. Here are three examples, boosted by some independently documented force technology success stories:
1. Mental ill health demand
Last year, a force in England shared that 800,000 hours were being consumed each year, due to officers attending to mental health-related issues. This came at a high cost – an estimated £26 million annually. Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, announced that ‘Met’ officers would only be dispatched to mental health-related 999 calls if there was an immediate threat to life.
Managing demand relating to mental health issues is a huge challenge for many forces. Granted, the high demand is driven by the nature of police work – support services close at 5pm but the police control room is open 24/7 to receive calls.
It’s worth mentioning that the high number of mental health-related calls is just a symptom of a much bigger policing issue – the overuse of emergency lines for reporting of non-emergency issues. In a single month, another force noted that while they were contacted 58,025 times (via 999,101 and online), only a quarter of these communications were crime-related inquiries.
So how to address the problem? The first step is understanding the types of calls that police forces deal with daily. AI-powered technologies, like voice analytics, can help to do this by categorising the types of calls that are received. Other AI technologies (e.g. conversational AI) can also be applied to ‘deflect’ non-emergency calls away from emergency call takers, instead sending automated replies and notifications.
For example, one force reported that calls from the public wanting to know who is dealing with their case constitute approximately 22 percent of all interactions its control room operatives handle. AI could be used (via back-end integrations with the Police Force’s Computer Aided Dispatch and Records Management Systems) to find the relevant Officer in Charge and then proactively send this information out to the member of the public via a preferred communications channel.
This same automated methodology could also be used to provide updates relating to the status of a case as it moves on to a charging decision, court date, and so on – averting the use of valuable resources for handling routine, non-emergency inquiries. In this example, AI would free up human call takers to handle more urgent incidents, while non-emergency callers would still continue to receive the high level of service they expect and demand.
2. Pre-charge files
The first step in the pre-charge process involves evidence gathering. This used to require logging into different systems to pull evidence, but this process has been vastly automated and simplified, thanks to Digital Evidence Management (DEMS). In fact, twenty forces in England and Wales, including Hampshire Constabulary, now rely on the NICE Investigate Digital Evidence Management system to manage all of their digital evidence and investigations. Officers can access all of their digital evidence through a single login, without having to navigate different systems.
The solution even streamlines investigations by automatically finding and depositing digital evidence into the correct case folders. Hampshire Constabulary has realized huge cost savings from DEMS annually (approximately £846k from automated evidence ingestion and case building alone). NICE Investigate also makes it easier to share evidence with the CPS, which invariably speeds up charging decisions. Evidence can now be shared through a fully electronic, trackable process.
Notably, manual redaction is another productivity barrier that was cited in the Police Productivity Review. The study estimates that it takes in the region of five and a half hours to redact material for each pre-charge file. Crucially, DEMS also features built-in redaction capabilities, which streamline evidence preparation and ensure compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018 (which requires police forces to redact unnecessary personal information from material being shared with the CPS).
3. Improving the timeliness of charging decisions via speedier evidence sharing
After an arrest is made, it’s a race against the custody clock to obtain and share evidence with the CPS for a charging decision. Without compelling evidence, suspects can be released under investigation.
Before Lancashire Constabulary implemented the NICE Investigate Digital Evidence Management solution it could take three to five days for digital evidence to reach the CPS. Now, what used to take days can be accomplished in an hour.
Officers working at Cleveland Police have seen similar results. The resource-draining procedure of copying case files and digital evidence onto CDs, USB drives and paper, has been replaced by a fully electronic and audited process. To share evidence, an officer simply emails a secure link to a digital case file.
“The feedback we’ve received from our officers has been positive and our engagement with the CPS through NICE Investigate’s wholly digital process is working well,” said Cleveland Police Chief Inspector Chris Barker.
In another recent initiative, South Wales Police and Gwent Police have been speeding up the process of sharing information with the CPS. Now, instead of manually completing an MG0 form – (officers used to complete Manual of Guidance forms when preparing a case for court) – the officer simply emails a link to a digital case file.
In addition to relieving officers of the tedious tasks of filling out forms, and copying and physically transporting evidence, DEMS has also proven effective in fighting crime. For example, when Northamptonshire Police was investigating an alleged crime committed by a prisoner who was already in the custody of a neighbouring force, it needed to share some incriminating CCTV footage to keep the prisoner behind bars. Officers were able to rapidly share the footage with the CPS electronically, to support the remand application. Without this quick collaboration, the suspect would likely have been freed.
Detective Inspector, Andrew Tuff commented: “Being able to share footage with CPS in this way was far more impactful than simply submitting a viewing statement from an officer. This is just one example that perfectly demonstrates the wider benefit of NICE Investigate in supporting the work of the broader criminal justice community in its collective effort to fight crime and protect people.”
Looking for solutions to enhance your staff’s productivity?
When considering innovative technologies to improve productivity and efficiency across the entire public safety and justice spectrum, forces should not overlook AI-enabled speech technology and Digital Evidence Management. Granted, these technologies might not grab the headlines in the same manner or magnitude as facial recognition and drones, but they are every bit as powerful in terms of solving real-world challenges that forces face every day.
For more information on the transformative benefits of these technologies, please reach out to NICE Public Safety & Justice at PSInfo@NICE.com.
