Best Practices Report - Police and Law Enforcement V1.0

e-Governance Best Practices Report:
Police and Law Enforcement

Tarak Dhurjati
e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 i

Copyright License
This Best Practices Report submitted by the author and accepted for use under the project of
National e-Governance Division (NeGD), Ministry of Communications and Information Technology,
Government of India by the National Institute for Smart Government (NISG), the program
management agency, is governed by the following license of the Creative Commons. For any
specific permission/feedback the publisher may be contacted.
(cc) Creative Common License - Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic
Disclaimer
The Best Practices Report is meant for use as reference material on the topics related to e-
Governance in the Police sector, and should not be treated as a guideline and/or instructions for
undertaking the activities covered under any e-Governance project/s. It may also be used in a
classroom for discussion by the participants undergoing e-Governance related training programs in
the Police sector. The document by no means has any commercial intention and is solely developed
for the purpose of knowledge sharing.
NISG-CBKM 73-20/Best Practices - CIO/09-2013/V1

Printed & Published by
National Institute for Smart Government,
www.nisg.org
on behalf of the
Department of Electronics & Information Technology,
Government of India
e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 ii

Table of Contents
Executive Summary vi
1 Introduction 1
2 Police as an organization and Policing as a function 4
2.1 Police Organizations 5
2.2 Role of Central Government 7
2.3 Policing as a Function 8
2.4 Reform Initiatives in the Police Sector 10
3 Use of ICT in Indian Police 13
3.1 Crime and Criminal information System (CCIS) 15
3.2 Common Integrated Police Application 16
3.3 Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) 18
3.4 3.4 Police-IT project and other ICT initiatives 27
3.5 eCOPS project 32
3.6 HD-IITS (Home Department- Integrated Information System) 36
3.7 CAARUS 38
3.8 Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) 39
3.9 Talaash 40
3.10 Motor Vehicle Coordination System (MVCS) 41
3.11 Portrait Building System (PBS) 42
4 Best Practices in e-Governance for Police and Law enforcement 44
5 Best Practices-National 47
5.1 Centralized Dial 100 systems 47
5.2 Mobile Handheld/Blackberry based Traffic enforcement systems 49
5.3 E-Beat/Handhelds for Beats/patrols 51
5.4 Integrated Investigation Toolkit Applications 53
5.5 Use of webinars for training and leadership communications 54
5.6 Rearrangement to Centralize Functions at District level/ Commissionerate level 57
5.7 Citizen portals 60
5.8 Business Process Redesign Recommendations – CCTNS 63
6 Best practices-International 71
6.1 Schengen information systems for registration-UK/EU 71
6.2 Mobile Scanning of Fingerprints 76
6.3 HOLMES2- Investigation management system-UK 79
6.4 Police and Social media 82
6.5 Good practices for management of Computer based electronic evidence 86
6.6 Citizen portals 89
6.7 Intelligence Led Policing (ILP) 93
6.8 COMPSTAT 103
6.9 Measuring the effects of Implementation of ICT initiatives in Police: 108
6.10 Public awareness messaging and Reverse 911/Emergency system 112
6.11 Lessons Learned Information Sharing System 113
7 Compilation of best practices considered for CCTNS project 115
e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 iii
List of Figures:
Figure 1: Field Establishment of the Police Force 6

Figure 2: A typical setup of functional distribution 6
Figure 3: Typical CCIS architecture 15
Figure 4: Core workflow of CIPA 17
Figure 5: Key stakeholders of CCTNS 20
Figure 6: Core Application Software (CAS) Features 23
Figure 7: CAS – The Major Functional Modules 24
Figure 8: Components of CAS application 25
Figure 9: CCTNS Network architecture 26
Figure 10: Karnataka State Police Wide Area Network 30
Figure 11: Network Diagram of AP Police 34
Figure 12: Overall solution architecture of HDIITS 36
Figure 13: Envisaged integration/interfacing for HD-IITS as a part of CCTNS program 37
Figure 14: Timelines: E-Governance in Police and law enforcement in India 43
Figure 15: Blackberry device and Thermal printer 49
Figure 16: Blackberry deployment architecture 50
Figure 17: Screenshot of Blackberry application interfaces 51
Figure 18: Screenshot of Blackberry application interfaces 51
Figure 19: User Interface of handheld device used in Madhya Pradesh 53
Figure 20: Key functionalities of Hand held application user in Madhya Pradesh 53
Figure 21: Webinar console 55
Figure 22: Invite to webinar 55
Figure 23: Webinar Joining 56
Figure 24: Functional Rearrangement of Non-core functions 57
Figure 25: HOLMES2 screens 81
Figure 26: “COMPSTAT Assessment – Information Flow Chart” 105
Figure 27: Stratified Model of Problem Solving, Analysis, and Accountability 107
Figure 28: Reverse 911 113
List of Tables:
“Table 1: Components of eCOPS” 35

Table 2: BPR Recommendation 70
Table 3: EU Council Recommendations & Best Practices to be followed by members 75
Table 4: Best practice case#1: Rapid Response, Austin, Texas 98
Table 5: Best practice case#2: Evan’s county, Georgia- ILP in rural setting 100
Table 6: Best practice case#3: Safe streets initiative, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA 101
Table 7: Best practice case#4: Gangs as criminal enterprises, Palm Beach County, Florida, USA 102
Table 8: Assessment of Records Management System 111
Table 9: Best practices- United Kingdom 118
Table 10: Best practices: United States of America 120
Table 11: Best practices: Singapore 122
Table 12: Best practices: Australia 124
e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 iv

Abbreviations
CAS Core Application Software (of CCTNS project)
CCIS Crime and Criminal Information System
CIPA Common Integrated Police Application
CCTNS Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems
CPMF Central Paramilitary Forces
CPMC Central Project Management Consultant (of CCTNS project)
CPMU Central Project Management Unit (of CCTNS project)
CAARUS Crime Analysis and Automated Record Updating System
DeITY Department of Electronics and Information Technology
DR Disaster Recovery
DGP Director General of Police
DPR Detailed Project Report
eCOPS e-Computerized Operations for Police Services
EMS Enterprise Management System
FIR First Information Report
HDIITS Home Department Integrated Information Technology Solution
ICT Information and Communication Technology/Technologies
MPF Scheme for Modernization of State Police forces
MMP Mission Mode Project (under NeGP)
MHA Ministry of Home Affairs
MPLS Multi-Protocol Label Switching
NCRB National Crime Records Bureau
NATGRID National Intelligence Grid
NeGP National e-Governance Plan
NCTC National Counter Terrorism Centre
NIC National Informatics Centre
NISG National Institute of Smart Government
NMS Network Management System
NSDG National Service Delivery Gateway
PoP Point of Presence
SDC State Data Centre
SWAN State Wide Area Network
SSDG State Service Delivery Gateway
SDPO Sub-Divisional Police Officer/Office
VPNoBB Virtual Private Network over Broadband
e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 v

Executive Summary
Police as organizations and Policing as a function has been evolving with times and has been going
through a transformation to keep pace with a highly dynamic socio-economic, technology and public
security landscape. The adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by the
Police organizations to improve their operational efficiencies and enhance effectiveness of their
functioning has been one of the key interventions to enable reforms in the police organization and
also to empower Police to meet the challenges of enforcement of law and order, crime prevention
and crime and criminal investigation.
Police organizations are now moving towards building e-Government systems and enabling e-
Governance, which will certainly bring about a paradigm shift in the way Police work and also in the
way people perceive Police. To realize such a massive transformation process, appropriate adoption
of relevant best practices, good practices, standards and other benchmarks will result in quick wins
and also help sustain the change in the long term. Best practices in Police which have been validated
in a specific context with consistent results of process and performance improvement play a very
important role for enabling their replication in similar contexts.
This report attempts to provide an over view of the evolution of e-Governance in Police
Departments in India and highlights best practices followed in implementation and operations of e-
Governance in Police Departments of India and internationally. This report is prepared based on
secondary research and documented facts collected by the author during his experience in
implementation of e-Governance projects in the field of Police and Law enforcement sector of India.
Annotations, Explanations, Citations and references have been provided for all the content referred
to in the report both as foot notes. While information which has been analyzed and paraphrased in
the report has been referenced, content which has been sourced from various references provided
in the document has been shown in quotes. This report is intended for reference use for all students,
practitioners and professionals associated with e-Governance, Information Technology industry and
Government and its presents documented best practices which will be useful for conceptualization,
design, implementation and operation of e-Governance projects.
This report provides:
(i) A broad understanding of Police organizations and criminal justice system in India
(ii) An overview of the journey of e-Governance in Police Departments in India and
(iii) An overview of key e-Governance projects implemented in Police domain.
The report is divided into two parts. The subjects covered in the first part are:
(i) Key concepts of e-Governance and a bird’s eye view to the e-Governance landscape in India
(ii) An overview of Police organizations and criminal justice systems in India
(iii) Adoption of ICTs in Police organizations and
(iv) Key challenges and limitations on the adoption of ICTs in Police Departments. Particularly
the ICT initiatives in Police implemented by the Central and State Governments, viz., CCIS,
CIPA, Police-IT, eCOPS, etc., are explained.
The report also discusses the ongoing Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS)
project and its framework as it consolidates all the existing ICT initiatives of Indian Police and has
also been designed on the best practices and principles of e-Governance as a part of National e-
Governance Plan. Specific details of CCTNS project implementation on how the vision of a nation-
wide networked infrastructure hosting a comprehensive applications platform would operate for
enabling the goal of sharing real-time crime and criminal information across States/UTs and
e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 vi

jurisdictions has been described in the report. In the latter sections of the first part, the report
discusses on the key Business process improvement and ICT initiatives undertaken in Police and law
enforcement sector in India and major Business Process Reengineering (BPR) recommendations
made by NCRB as a part of CCTNS project developed based on Police reforms recommendations.
The second part of the report explains National and International best practices in the police and law
enforcement sector. Although e-Governance best practices in Police sector have not been
specifically published and documented in Indian context, significant effort has been invested in
conceptualization and design of CCTNS which has been designed around best practice principles
culled out from various e-Governance initiatives in Police in India. The following national level best
practice examples have been identified and presented in the report.
i) Centralized Dial 100 systems: The key functional and design aspects of Centralized state level
Dial 100 systems have been described as a best practice example based on the pilots started
in a few States.
ii) Mobile/Handheld Traffic Enforcement systems: The best practice case of on the spot traffic
enforcement and fines as implemented by innovative use of Mobile handhelds has been
explained including the disadvantage
iii) E-Beat/Handhelds for patrol: The use of handheld devices for beat management in the State
of Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh has been explained as best practice example. The
underlying principle is to reduce inefficiencies in communication and logistics through
effective resource scheduling and prompt communication on crime prevention.
iv) Integrated Investigation toolkits/application: The example of eCOPS platform has been
explained as a best practice with respect to consolidation of various information sources for
crime and criminal investigation.
v) Use of Webinars: The best practice example of use of webinar facility available in the
enterprise edition of email solution by Madhya Pradesh Police has been described.
vi) Rearrangement to centralize functions at district/commissionerate level: Process best
practices identified under CCTNS project for enabling citizen services of Police through e-
Governance and Common Service Centres have been described.
vii) Citizen portals: The best practices and critical success factors for delivery of services through
Police portals has been explained after analysis of various Police Departmental websites in
India.
viii) Business Process redesign recommendations: As a part of CCTNS project, Business process
redesign recommendations have been proposed as process improvement guidelines to
States for effective alignment of Government with ICT solutions which have been described
as a reference.
While the examples presented showcase technology and process improvement solutions which have
evolved over a period of adoption and continuous improvement, the underlying concept of process
redesign and the innovative and contextual use of technologies form the gist of international best
practices. The following Best practice examples have been presented as international best practices.
i) Schengen Information Systems of European Union: Published best practices on
Information sharing for integrated border management with multi-agency coordination
enabled through optimized use of technology and process improvement.
ii) Field level authentication of identities in United Kingdom (UK): Field level authentication
of identities of suspects on the move, through Mobile/handheld devices has been
e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 vii
described. The implementation of this initiative has also considered the concerns on
individual freedom and rights of citizens through suitable legislations and standard
operating procedures.
iii) Integrated Investigation Management systems, United Kingdom: HOLMES2, one of the
earliest technology solutions for investigation management used in UK for bringing
together several applications required for enabling an efficient investigation process has
been presented. The underlying best practices pertain to the building a common
platform for bringing together various information sources involved in investigation
processes for solving complex and major cases.
iv) Police and Social media: In view of the rapid expansion of internet and exponential
increase of networks and mobile devices across the world, effective use of Social media
by the Police both for crime prevention and crime investigation purposes is important.
Documented international best practices on the use of social media by Police have been
described.
v) Handling Electronic evidence: Best practices related to handling of electronic evidence
for crime investigation and cybercrimes have been described.
vi) Citizen portals: Various best practices followed for successful delivery of services
through citizen portals have been explained, including critical success factors which
enable achievement of public service delivery outcomes.
vii) Intelligence Led Policing (ILP): The emerging concept of ILP which has been
conceptualized based on community policing experiments and as a part of interventions
into Post 9/11 Homeland security initiatives has been explained including select best
practice examples.
viii) COMPSTAT: Process, people and technology Best practices relating to one of the
pioneering and holistic initiatives in Policing, have been explained to enable an
understanding on how top Police leadership can use technology to drive Police
organizations for reduction of crimes.
ix) Measuring effectiveness: Regular monitoring and impact evaluation of ICT and process
improvement interventions on various dimensions is an important exercise to enable
sustainability and continuous improvement. Best practice framework for measuring
effectiveness for various ICT solutions validated by relevant stakeholders has been
presented.
x) Public awareness messaging systems and Reverse 911: The innovative use of emergency
response systems as Public awareness messaging systems and Reverse 911, where in
information on crimes in neighborhood and alerts are sent to subscribed users as a part
of community policing is another best practice example which can be incorporated as a
key functionality in the design of centralized emergency response systems.
xi) Lessons Learned Information Systems: Knowledge sharing portals and knowledge
repositories are critical for disseminating information across various stakeholders and
empower them with the power of information. The Lessons Learned Information System
of USA is a best practice example which brings together information from diverse
sources for aiding Police functions across the country.
In addition to the above best practices, international best practices identified under CCTNS project
have also been presented as a reference in a separate section. Although an overview of the ICT
initiatives with descriptions of Governance structures, Implementation models, technology
e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 viii
architecture, technology platforms, etc. are explained; the report by itself is not exhaustive and
intends only to provide the gist of the requisite details. Further as the report is a compilation of best
practices to be used as reference material for training and education purposes, relevant content has
been directly reproduced under quotes at various instances with respect to recommendations,
guidelines, diagrams, etc. Finally the report summarizes the best practices and provides areas for
process improvement opportunities. The report also highlights key lessons learnt in various sections
and outlines on how the learning shall be beneficial for future projects and initiatives.
e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 ix

1 Introduction
Policing is an organizational function aimed to establish and maintain order, enforce the law and
prevent and detect crimes. Police organizations are important part of Governments, authorized and
charged with the responsibility to maintain the peace, safety, security and order of the community.
While crime prevention, detection and investigation of crimes and maintenance of law and order
have been the core functions of Policing, Police also support the State in several other associated
functions. Policing as a function is in the process of evolution with the changing times and the
emerging needs of rapidly transforming world.
The last two to three decades of our times, have ushered a technology revolution with Information
and Communication Technologies (ICTs) laying a foundation for a revolutionary change in the
metamorphosis towards an Information and knowledge age of twenty first century. In line with the
process of ongoing transformation, people and organizations across all sectors, including
Governments have adopted the use of ICTs for performing their day to day operations and delivering
services.
The concepts of e-Government and e-Governance which relate to the use of ICTs for realization of
organizational, welfare and public service outcomes have therefore become a key enabler in
transforming day to day operations of Governments, reforms and policy formulation and achieving
developmental outcomes. Various Governmental Departments and Public sector organizations have
adopted the use of ICTs over the last two decades and are in various stages of maturity. While
organizations with commercial and service transactions aimed at significant cost reductions and
profits in line with market demand, have been frontrunners in e-Governance, organizations which
cater to public service functions like Police have also been swiftly progressing towards similar
outcomes across the world.
Although the adoption of technology is not a new phenomenon for Police and associated
organizations which have been using wireless and telecommunication technology systems, advanced
forensic technologies, surveillance systems, etc., for quite some time, ICT adoption for improving
internal efficiencies of administration and delivering services to public has initiated only in the past
1-2 decades. Further the rapidly changing public security scenario has also triggered a strong need
for the Police organizations around the world to quickly adapt to a highly dynamic socio-economic
landscape through appropriate interventions like reforms, process reengineering and adoption of e-
Governance.
Electronic Government (e-Government) with various levels and layers of interaction and delivery
models, viz., within Government and its employees (G2G), Government to Businesses/commerce
and vice versa (G2B/B2G), Government to Citizens and vice versa (G2C/C2G) is a multi-dimensional
intervention aimed at organizational and institutional development aligned with a demand from
markets and overall public welfare.
e-Government not only involves design, implementation and operations of Information and
communication Technology (IT) products and systems for particular functions of Government
organizations or Departments, but most importantly includes activities such as process
reengineering/redesign, building organizational capacities to assimilate ICTs and the modified
service delivery models, orienting the organization towards “Change” through Change management
interventions and other activities which make the overall system work towards intended outcomes.
e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 Page 1 of 124
E-Governance as a concept is much broader and focuses on participation and involvement of
Citizens/residents of the country in the governance process towards achievement of public welfare
outcomes and includes interrelationships across various organizations within the overall socio-
economic environment of Governance in public systems. Although both terms are interchangeably
used, e-Governance in general needs to be understood from a systems perspective underlined by
participatory governance and bidirectional interaction between citizens and Governments rather
than a simplistic view of ICT adoption by Government Departments. For our report purposes we use
the term e-Governance in line with the vision of National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) as given below.
"Make all Government services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common
service delivery outlets, and ensure efficiency, transparency, and reliability of such services at
affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the common man"
The NeGP which was approved in 2006 currently has 31 Mission mode projects (MMPs) for various
including national level core infrastructure projects, namely State Data Centres (SDCs), State Wide
Area Networks (S.W.A.N), Common Services Centres (CSCs) and Middleware gateways
(are i.e. National e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (NSDG), State e-Governance Service
Delivery Gateway (SSDG), and Mobile e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG). In addition to
the above MMPs, several support components like include Core policies and guidelines on Security,
HR, Citizen Engagement, Social Media as well as Standards related to Metadata, Interoperability,
Enterprise Architecture, Information Security etc., are also a part of NeGP. Two initiatives which
have recently been added to NeGP include e-Pramaan, framework for authentication and G-I cloud,
an initiative for enabling infrastructure optimization and cloud computing for e-Governance
projects1.
The Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) project is one of the 31 MMPs of the
NeGP which caters to realization of e-Governance outcomes in Police and law enforcement sector in
India. Considering the various ICT initiatives in Police both at Centre and the States at that point of
time in 2006, it was felt that the systems were designed to function as stand-alone systems creating
disparate islands of information and with the existing implementation progress and funding, it would
take many years before all police stations could be covered under a common networked
infrastructure for realizing the goal of “sharing real-time crime and criminal information.2”
“Keeping these aspects in view, and after detailed discussions with the Planning Commission, it was
decided that there is a need for expanding the Police functional applications, widening the territorial
spread, and building in networking capabilities in the system, both from the angle of Management
Information Systems (MIS) requirements and storage, collation, analysis and transmission/sharing of
crime and criminals related information at the police station, District, State and Central levels. In this
background, the Crime and Criminal Tracking Networking and Systems (CCTNS) Scheme was
conceived and incorporated in the Eleventh Five Year Plan with an outlay of Rs. 2000 crores” as per
the Cabinet note which is the project charter and foundation document of CCTNS project.
With the launching of the Scheme, the erstwhile legacy applications like Crime and Criminal
Information System (CCIS), Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) and other software
1
NeGP: http://deity.gov.in/content/national-e-governance-plan [ Retrieved on 21-07-2013]
2
Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs Note, 2009, MHA-Excerpts as published in the Implementation guidelines to
States.
developed at the Central level will get subsumed into it in a manner that the work already done
thereunder is not disrupted.
Further the Centre will develop a state of the art CCTNS application called as the Core Application
Software (CAS) which will be provided to the States for further customization as per State specific
requirements. The States which are currently using their own ICT applications like eCOPS in case of
Andhra Pradesh, Police-IT in case of Karnataka, HD-IITS in case of Gujarat, G-COPS of Goa and
CAARUS of Tamil Nadu would be allowed to further use the existing software, with standardization
on the lines of CAS and relevant customization for information sharing with CAS at the Centre and
States. It is to be noted that earlier ICT initiatives in Policing were being implemented through
Modernization of Police Funds (MPF) under which the State had to propose for several
heads/components with competing priorities or through centrally driven schemes where there was
no direct ownership of the States/UTs. Through CCTNS, however for the first time, an MMP was
conceived exclusively with a funding of Rs 2000 Crores for e-Governance in Police to be directly
implemented by the States/UTs. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), an attached office of
MHA was designated the national level nodal monitoring agency for implementing ICT initiatives in
Police.
To appreciate the evolution of e-Governance in Police so far and the relevance of best practices both
from Indian and International contexts, a preliminary understanding of the Police organizations and
the criminal justice system in India is presented in the following sections.
2 Police as an organization and Policing as a function
Life and personal liberty are guaranteed as a fundamental right as per Article 21 of the constitution.
This right is also considered as the basic human right. Right to property which is constitutional right
under Article 300A was earlier considered as a fundamental right. Further Article 246 of the
Constitution of India places the police, public order, courts, prisons, reformatories, Borstal and other
allied institutions in the State List3 of the seventh schedule which provide the powers and
responsibilities on the subject to the States. With the above brief introduction of role of Police as
enshrined in the constitution, it can be said that the understanding the criminal justice system is a
prelude to understanding the police.
“The Criminal justice system in India was inherited from the British common law system wherein
accused is presumed to be innocent and it is burden of the prosecution to prove beyond doubt the
guilt of the accused. The State discharges the obligation to protect life, liberty and property of the
citizens by taking suitable preventive and punitive measures which also serve the object of preventing
private retribution so essential for maintenance of peace and law and order in the society”.4 The
above is the essence of the function of criminal justice system of which Police is an important
instrument to ensure suitable preventive and punitive measures are enforced as per law to uphold
the rights of the citizens to foster the outcome of maintenance of peace and law and order.
The criminal law consists of the substantive law contained in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as well as
the special and local laws enacted by the central and state legislatures from time to time and the
procedural law laid down mainly in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Cr.P.C) and the Indian
Evidence Act, 1872.
These three major Acts, i.e. the IPC, Cr.P.C and the Indian Evidence Act were enacted by the British
during the second half of the 19th century. Of these, the only major law that has been revised since
Independence is the Cr.P.C, which was revised in 1973 on the recommendations made by the Law
Commission of India. The other two laws, except for some minor amendments, have remained
unchanged5.
The Police are the key organization who register an incident or an event and interpret, classify and
identify the event or activity as a crime to further investigate and build a case, before presenting it
to Prosecution Department and Courts for disposal. The Prosecution Department, Courts, Jails and
other associated Departments of the Government also function as the key components of the
criminal justice system. Truth being the cherished ideal and ethos of India, pursuit of truth is
considered as the guiding star of the Criminal Justice System. The manner in which police
investigations are conducted is of critical importance to the functioning of the Criminal Justice
System. The Crime and criminal investigation which is the core function of Police is the key
foundation for unraveling the truth for success of the criminal justice system.
The police is a state subject and its organization and working are governed by rules and regulations
framed by the state governments. These rules and regulations are outlined in the Police Manuals of
the state police forces. Each State/Union Territory has its separate police force. Despite the diversity
3
Police organizations, http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/publications/police/police_organisations.pdf [ Retrieved on
21-07-2013]
4
Committee on reforms on Criminal Justice system,2003,Vol-I, section-2.1,2,2,pp-23, [ Retrieved on 21-07-2013]
5
Police Organizaitionshttp://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/publications/police/police_organisations.pdf, [ Retrieved on
21-07-2013]
of police forces, there is a good deal that is common amongst them. This is due to the following
reasons.
1) “The structure and working of the State Police Forces are governed by the Police Act of 1861,
which is applicable in most parts of the country, or by the State Police Acts modeled mostly
on the 1861 legislation.
2) Major criminal laws, like the Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, and the
Indian Evidence Act etc. are uniformly applicable to almost all parts of the country.
3) The Indian Police Service (IPS) is an All India Service, which is recruited, trained and managed
by the Central Government and which provides the bulk of senior officers to the State Police
Forces.
4) The quasi-federal character of the Indian polity, with specific provisions in the Constitution,
allows a coordinating and counseling role for the Centre in police matters and even
authorizes it to set up certain central police organizations.”
2.1 Police Organizations
Superintendence over the police force in the state is exercised by the State Government. The head
of the police force in the state is the Director General of Police (DGP), who is responsible to the state
government for the administration of the police force in the state and for advising the government
on police matters.
States are divided territorially into administrative units known as districts. An officer of the rank of
Superintendent of Police in general, heads the district police force. A group of districts form a range,
which is looked after by an officer of the rank of Deputy Inspector General of Police. Some states
have zones comprising two or more ranges, under the charge of an officer of the rank of an
Inspector General of Police.
Every district is divided into sub-divisions. A sub-division is under the charge of an officer of the rank
of ASP/ Dy.S.P. Every sub-division is further divided into a number of police stations, depending on
its area, population and volume of crime. Between the police station and the subdivision, there are
police circles in some states - each circle headed generally by an Inspector of Police6.
The police station is the basic unit of police administration in a district. Under the Criminal
Procedure Code, all crime has to be recorded at the police station and all preventive, investigative
and law and order work is done from there.
A police station is divided into a number of beats, which are assigned to constables for patrolling,
surveillance, collection of intelligence etc. The officer in charge of a police station is an Inspector of
Police, particularly in cities and metropolitan areas. Even in other places, the bigger police stations,
in terms of area, population, crime or law and order problems, are placed under the charge of an
Inspector of Police. In rural areas or smaller police stations, the officer in charge is usually a Sub-
Inspector of Police.
6
21-07-2013]
To enable the police have greater and speedier reach and the public to gain easier access to police
help, police posts have been set up under police stations, particularly where the jurisdiction of the
police station, in terms of area and population, is large. In addition to general Police stations, Police
stations established for special purposes like Woman Police stations, Police stations for protection of
rights of scheduled castes/tribes/weaker sections/etc. have also been established to provide
specialized services7.
The Field Establishment of the Police Force is presented below
Director General of Police (Incharge of the State Police force)

Additional Director General of Police (Addl. DGP) ( Heads functions at Police HQs)
Inspector General of Police (Incharge of a zone with few ranges or I/c of a Range)
Deputy Inspector General of Police (I/c of a Range)
Senior Superintendant of Poilice (I/c of a large district)
Supertindant of Police (I/c of a district)
Additional Superintendant of Police
Assistant/Deputy Superintendant of Police (I/c of a sub-division)
Circle Inspector (I/c of a group of Police stations)
Inspector of Police (I/c of a Police station)
Sub-Inspector of Police (I/c of a smaller Police station)
Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police
Head Constable
Constable
Figure 1: Field Establishment of the Police Force
In addition to the field establishment, there is functional distribution of work too supporting the
Director General of Police for performing various functions of the Department. Senior officers of the
rank of ADGP or IGP assist the Director General of Police in looking after different aspects of police
work both at Police Headquarters and other Police offices of the State. A typical setup of functional
distribution is given below.
Director
General of
Police
ADGP ADGP(Tech
ADGP (Law ADGP ADGP
(Police nical ADGP (CID) ADGP (CID)
and Order) (ACB) (Admin)
training)/S services)
CRB
Figure 2: A typical setup of functional distribution
7
21-07-2013]
Such functions include Police training, State Crime Records Bureau, State Forensic Laboratory,
Telecommunications, Crime Investigation Department, Technical services, Police
telecommunications, Railways, Intelligence and security, Armed Constabulary, Economic offences,
etc. The Dual system of Police organization at district level also needs to be understood, where in
the section 3 of the Police act 1861, places the police forces under the District Superintendent of
Police, but subject to the “general control and direction” of the District Magistrate.
This system was standardized under the British rule through which a system of dual control of local
rule was introduced. However it was also realized by the British rulers that the Dual control system
would not work efficiently in metropolitan areas, which faced different police problems. Therefore,
another system i.e. the “commissionarate” system of policing was introduced in certain
metropolitan areas like Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Hyderabad. Under this system, the
responsibility for policing the city/area is vested in the Commissioner of Police8.
2.2 Role of Central Government
Though the Constitution of India has mandated ‘Police’ and ‘Public Order’ to be State subjects, there
are certain provisions in the Constitution, which empower the Central Government to intervene in
some situations or perform special functions in police matters. It is the duty of the Centre to protect
the states against internal disturbances and to ensure that the governance of every state is carried
on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution (Article 355). As per List 1 of the 7th
Schedule, the Parliament has exclusive powers to make laws with respect to:
 “The armed forces of the Union, which includes the Central Para–Military Forces;
 The Central Bureau of Intelligence and Investigation ;
 The Union agencies and institutions for training of police officers, promotion of special
studies or research, scientific and technical assistance in the investigation or detection of
crime ;
 All-India Services ; and
 Extension of the powers and jurisdiction of members of one state police force to another with
the consent of that state or to outside railway areas.”
The Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India is responsible for the internal security of the
country as a whole and performs the following duties in matters concerning police.
 “Recruiting and managing the Indian Police Service;

 Operating the Intelligence Bureau, the Central Bureau of Investigation and other Central
Police Organizations:
 Raising, maintaining and deploying Central Para-Military Forces to assist the civil police;
 Maintaining a Directorate of Coordination of Police Wireless to provide an independent
channel of communication to police forces in the country and National Crime Records Bureau
to ensure computerization of police forces and maintenance of national level crime records
and statistics;
 Establishing and maintaining institutions for research, training and rendering of scientific
aids to investigation;
 Enacting laws for the functioning of the criminal justice system in the country;
 Rendering advice and assistance to the state governments in dealing with crime, law and
order and other related matters;
8
Police organizations, http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/publications/police/police_organisations.pdf [Retrieved on
23-07-2013]
 Coordinating the activities of various state police organizations; and
 Providing financial assistance for the modernization of State police Forces.”
As mentioned above Central Paramilitary Police organizations or Central Armed Police Forces viz.,
Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Shasatra Seema Bal (SSB),
Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Border Security Force (BSF), National Security Guards (NSG),
Railway Protection Force, Special Protection Group and Assam Rifles are maintained by the Ministry
of Home Affairs, Government of India to support civil police forces to maintain law and order and
internal security of the country. Further Central Government organizations like, Central Bureau of
Investigation, Intelligence Bureau, National Investigation Agency, Enforcement Directorate,
Narcotics Bureau, Special Service Bureau, Central Forensic laboratories, etc., also coordinate with
various State Police Departments on specific investigation requirements. With the above brief
introduction on Police organizations, an understanding of Policing as a function shall help in
appreciating various facets of e-Government and the role of best practices in sustaining performance
improvement9.
2.3 Policing as a Function
Policing as a function is a challenging responsibility and the capacities of Police organizations should
be developed in line with the ever increasing demand for delivering better services. By very nature
of the function, Police is the most visible arm of the Government as maintenance of public order,
peace and security is the most critical function of the State. The following are some of the
characteristics of Policing as a function in India.
(i) The core functions of Police are Crime prevention, Crime detection (Crime and criminal
investigation) and maintenance of law and order in the society. All the three functions are
interdependent and the outcomes of each function significantly affect the other outcomes
of other functions. However other non-core functions of Police also consume the time of
Police like providing VIP security, law and order deployments, record keeping, other
organizational functions involving logistics, etc., thereby causing diversion of limited
resources.
(ii) Inspite of democratic setup of the constitution in independent India, the Police functioning
and the mindset is still steeped in the conventions of a colonial mindset, which affects the
underpinnings of professionalism in line with the current socio-political context and
requirements of maintenance of peace and public order. This mindset although enforces an
organizational discipline, however creates inefficiencies in the system with respect to work
priorities, reporting relationships and delivery of services due to rigidities in a hierarchically
driven organization.
(iii) All the acts including IPC, CrPC , Evidence Act and Indian Police Act have been designed are
colonial in nature and have been promulgated before independence although the CrPC was
revised in 1973. The provisions of these key operational and functional blue books of
Policing are archaic and outdated with a need for significant reform in line with the Policing
standards of the contemporary context.
(iv) Policing and community relationships are brief, contextual and negative in nature depicting
a poor image of Police to the public.
(v) Indian Police is a functionally centralized organization and no efforts have been done to
decentralize the police functions
(vi) There is an extra ordinary workload on an average policeman, which has adversely affected
his efficiency and performance.
9
Police organizations, http://mha.gov.in/ [ Retrieved on 21-07-2013]
(vii) The findings of the various committees and commissions constituted to suggest measures to
reform the Indian Police have indicated that the Indian Police suffer with a number of
organizational paradoxes, procedural, anomalies, personnel shortcomings and behavioral
deviances which have impinged upon their performance, functioning, efficiency, image and
public relations.
Some of the pre-requisites to bring about improvement in police efficiency are following10:
i) “Organizational transformation: The paramilitary, status-quoistic and colonial

organization of the Indian police has to be restructured to suit the democratic and
socialistic needs of free India. The feudal and alien mix of the past has to be transformed
into a radical and dynamic blend of citizen police. The transformation of the alien and
colonially oriented police into citizen and democratic police will make the policemen
friends of the people in distress and need. The reformed and autonomous police, as
friends of the people, will be able to inspire love, esteem and acceptability in the masses.
ii) Procedural innovations: The Indian police, structurally as well as functionally, happen to
be an offshoot of the centuries-old enactments promulgated by the colonial rulers. The
Blue Books of the Indian police are old, archaic and colonial. The very spirit of the Indian
Evidence Act is full of distrust for the police. The procedural quagmire tends to make
police an object of social distance and popular distrust. The Blue Books of police have to
be reauthored to make the police functioning simple, fast and trustworthy. The penal
and procedural police aspects will have to be reshaped according to the democratic,
secular and egalitarian aspirations of the Indian people and their Constitution.
iii) Personnel improvements: Recruitment, training, service conditions, promotion and
placement are some of the basic personnel parameters responsible for the functional
adequacy or otherwise of an organization, improper execution of these parameters is
natural to cause efficiency loss in the working personnel. Administrative experiences,
unsatisfactory police functioning, poor police image and inadequate community relations
indicate that these personnel parameters of the police have to be viewed with a new
vision to make them suitable tools for fostering cordial police-community relations. The
National Police Commission has delved deep into these aspects. Their recommendations
have to be implemented in TOTO. It will render the police efficient, democratic and
humane.
iv) Behavioral transformation: Behavioral reforms and attitudinal change at the individual
and department levels are required to be brought about with a view to developing
professionally sound, individually courteous, functionally democratic and morally strong
people to man the police organization.
v) Modernization of police: Police being a non-development department get a second-rate
treatment in the financial allocation. The police department therefore should be included
in the list of 'plan' departments, so that it may get due priority in the financial allocation
for modernizing itself in terms of men, money, material, machines and methods. A
modernized police organization will become progressive in their functioning and
democratic in their behavior.
vi) Decentralization of police function: There has been a tremendous increase in the
workload of police since Independence. Because of this workload the department has lost
its perspective in the lopsided priorities. This has rendered police job complex and tense.
Work overload causes delay in the timely disposal of work. This is natural to tarnish the
functional image of police and obstruct their relations with the community. To improve
10
BPR&D report on Police reforms, http://bprd.nic.in/writereaddata/linkimages/1645442204-Volume%201.pdf [ Retrieved
on 21-07-2013]
and increase police efficiency and to decentralize police functions to ease the workload
on police, various models of decentralization of police functions should be tried.11”
2.4 Reform Initiatives in the Police Sector
The public expectations of Police have increased manifold and newer forms of crimes have surfaced
over a period of time12. The Police system needs to be reformed in tune with the present day
scenario and upgraded to effectively deal with crime and criminals, uphold human rights and
safeguard the legitimate interests of one and all.
Various Committees/Commissions have made number of important recommendations regarding
Police reforms. Notable among these are those made by i) National Police Commission (1978-82)
(NPC), ii) Padmanabhaiah Committee on restructuring Police (2000) and Malimath Committee on
reforms of criminal justice system (2002-03). It is to be noted that the Central Government can only
constitute and commission the committees for reforms in the national interest and it is State
Governments which have to implement the reforms, as Police is a State subject as per the seventh
schedule of the constitution of India. Further Central Government consistently persuades and
supports the States to implement the reforms to improve the Police administration in line with the
expectations of the citizens of the country.
The NPC which was constituted in 1978 for comprehensive review of Indian Police system submitted
eight reports with recommendations to the Government to implement the reforms. Major
recommendation included amendments to CrPC, which was achieved through the Code of Criminal
procedure Bill passed in 2005. The Padmanabhaih committee submitted its report in the year 2000
with 240 recommendations out of which 154 recommendations can be implemented by the States
without any major legislative or structural changes.
The Malimath committee submitted its report in 2003 with 158 recommendations for revamping the
criminal justice system in the country. The Central Government through Ministry of Home Affairs has
been regularly following up with the States for implementation of the above key reforms for
improvement of Police functioning.
The MHA constituted a committee to review the status of implementation of reforms in 2004. The
committee shortlisted 49 recommendations (from all the earlier committee reports) as being crucial
for the process of transformation of the Police into a professionally competent and service oriented
organization. One of the recommendations of the committee was replacement of Police Act 1861.
An expert committee was constituted to draft the New Model Police Act in 2005 and the committee
submitted the draft Model Police Act in 2006. Since then, 15 States have revised and amended their
existing Police Acts as per the Model Police Act. The second Administrative Reforms commission on
Public order 2007 consolidates all the earlier findings and also provides its own recommendations
with respect to improving administration efficiencies for improved outcomes related to Public order.
The Model Police Act emphasizes on the need to have a professional police service in a democratic
society, which is efficient, effective and responsive to the needs of the people and accountable to
the Rule of Law. The other salient features of the Act are i) Functional Autonomy to Police
organizations, ii) Encouraging professionalism, iii) Accountability in performance and conduct and iv)
Improved service conditions.
Although the recommendations of the key Police reform initiatives advocate the need for building
capacities of Police organizations through training and performance improvement through ICT
adoption, the holistic concept of e-Government for improvement of Police functioning had not taken
11
BPR&D report on Police reforms, http://bprd.nic.in/writereaddata/linkimages/1645442204-Volume%201.pdf [ Retrieved
on 21-07-2013]
12
Status note on Police reforms: http://mha.nic.in/pdfs/Status-140613.PDF [ Retrieved on 21-07-2013]
shape at that point of time. However maintenance of crime records and crime and criminal
information at a national level has been one of the important responsibilities of Central
Government. Crime records play a vital role in the scheme of police working for prevention and
detection of crime. Police computerization and strengthening of Police functioning through relevant
ICT solutions was an integral component of the crime records maintenance through consolidation of
crime records from all States/UTs to develop national level information sharing for crime and
criminal investigation.
Though, police is a State subject under the Indian constitution, the Central Government through the
Ministry of Home Affairs has been assisting and aiding the States in the modernization of the State
Police Forces with the financial aid including funding for ICT initiatives through the Modernization of
Police Fund scheme (MPF). Further Centre has also been involved in constitution of Study Groups,
Committees, formation of central organizations and maintenance of crime records and statistics
through National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to help States fight the menace of crime more
effectively. Some of the important milestones especially with respect to initiatives aimed at
maintenance of Crime and criminal information which form the foundation of e-Government in
Police and Law enforcement in India are as follows13.
i) “Indian Police Commission - 1902. This Commission, for the first time, introduced standard
police forms and registers for information documentation at the level of Police Station and
District which were uniformly adopted throughout the country.
ii) Establishment of Central Fingerprint Bureau (CFPB), Kolkata - 1956. This Bureau used to
maintain finger print slips of convicted criminals of all the States to facilitate exchange of
information on inter-state criminals on the basis of finger print records. The CFPB was later
transferred as a division of NCRB, New Delhi.
iii) Establishment of Inter-State Crime Records Division at CBI- 1964. Apart from maintaining
conviction records of criminals in the CFPB, a new set up was made responsible for collection
and dissemination of information on selected crime and criminals having inter-state
ramifications.
iv) Sub-Committee on Computerization of crime records-1970. A subcommittee was set up by
resolution of national level Conference of Deputy Inspectors General (DIGs) Criminal
Investigation Departments (CID) of State Police in 1970 to look into the feasibility of
computerization of crime records in view of the growing volume of information collected at
various centers. The sub committee recommended computerization of crime records with
detailed modalities thereof.
v) MHA’s scheme for Modernization of Police Forces of States (MPF), 1970: The Ministry of
Home Affairs formulated a Rs. 100 crores scheme for rendering financial aid to the States for
modernization of police forces. Under this scheme Rs. 10 crores was to be disbursed to all
the States annually on pro-rata basis, of which 50% was a grant and 50% loan recoverable in
easy installments. Modernization of crime records through computerization based on the
recommendations of the DIsG CID Conference was included in this scheme in the year 1975-
76. This scheme was extended by another 10 years period.
vi) Sub-Committee on computerization of Fingerprints - 1972. The sub-committee analyzed the
process of finger print classification, evolved a new system of classification so as to admit of
computerization of finger print records and made recommendations for adoption of this
strategy for computerization of fingerprints.
vii) Establishment of Directorate of Coordination of Police Computers (DCPC) - 1976. In order to
implement the modernization scheme in respect of crime and finger print records in the
States, this organization was set up to introduce computer based systems in the States and
assist the States in procurement and installation of computers and implementation of Crime-
Criminals Information System.
13
NCRB origin-http://ncrb.gov.in/originnew.htm [Retrieved on 28-07-2013]
viii) Study group on Computerization of Crime Records – 1976: The study group was set up to
make recommendations for appropriate strategies and modalities of computerizations of
crime records keeping in view the latest technological developments in the field of Electronic
Data Processing and telecommunications.
ix) National Police Commission (NPC) - 1977. The Commission was set up to look into all aspects
of policing in the country and make recommendations with a view to bring about the
required organizational, procedural and cultural changes in the State Police to bring it in
tune with the national aspirations of a democratic and welfare State. The NPC
recommendations included broad set of reforms for improvement of Police functioning
including the establishment of a National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for planning and
strengthening use of ICT solutions.
x) Committee on Crime Records - 1978. The Committee was set up to review the existing crime
records and associated procedures and to recommend changes with a view to enable the
police forces to meet the present day requirements of crime and criminal information.”
Accepting the recommendations of the National Police Commission - 1977, the Ministry of Home
Affairs constituted a Task Force in 1985 to work out the modalities for setting up of the National
Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The Government accepted the recommendations of the Task Force
and constituted the NCRB with headquarters at New Delhi in January, 1986. As per the government
Resolution dated 11.3.1986 the following objectives were set for the NCRB:
(i) “To function as a clearing house of information on crime and criminals including those
operating at National and International levels so as to assists the investigators, and others
in linking crimes to their perpetrators.
(ii) To store, coordinate and disseminate information on inter-state and international criminals
from and to respective States, national investigating agencies, courts and prosecutors in
India without having to refer to the Police Station records.
(iii) To collect and process crime statistics at the National level.
(iv) To receive from and supply data to penal and correctional agencies for their tasks of
rehabilitation of criminals, their remand, parole, premature release etc.
(v) To coordinate, guide and assist the functioning of the State Crime Records Bureaux
(vi) To provide training facilities to personnel of the Crime Records bureaux, and
(vii) To evaluate, develop and modernize crime Records Bureaux
(viii) Executive and develop computer based systems for the Central Police Organisations - and
also cater to their data processing and training needs for computerization.
(ix) To function as the National storehouse of fingerprint (FP) records of convicted persons
including FP records of foreign criminals.
(x) To help trace interstate criminals by fingerprint search.
(xi) To advise Central and State Governments on matters related to fingerprints and footprints,
and to conduct training courses for finger print experts.”
As a first step towards streamlining of the system of crime-criminal information management at the
Centre, the Ministry of Home Affairs merged the following crime records establishments of various
Central Police Organizations with the NCRB:
(i) “Directorate of Coordination Police Computers (MHA)

(ii) Inter-State Criminals Data set up of the Central Bureau of Investigation.
(iii) Crime Statistics set up of the Bureau of Police Research and Development
(iv) Central Finger Print Bureau, Calcutta of the Central Bureau of Investigation14.”
14
Origin of NCRB-http://ncrb.gov.in/originnew.htm [Retrieved on 28-07-2013]
3 Use of ICT in Indian Police
The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) was created with the aim to help the investigating
agencies by providing them with extensive and updated information on crime and criminal data at
State and National level such as modus operandi, personal data, finger print, photograph, criminal
history and details of property which may be subject matter of crime. It is a pioneer organization for
providing information technology training to senior police officers and law enforcement agencies.
One of the key initiatives of NCRB emanating from the recommendations of various committees on
crime records was to streamline and standardize the Investigation forms used by various States/UTs
for crime and criminal investigation.
After comprehensive assessment of investigation forms of various States, a standard set of seven
Integrated Investigation Forms (IIFs) were developed by NCRB. The seven IIFs were validated by the
States as the core common workflow for crime and criminal investigation process used by all the
States of the country covering most of the cases of IPC and other Police Acts and in line with the
CrPC. The following are the seven IIFs which later became the foundation for development of
Application software for crime and criminal investigation.
i) IIF-1: First Information Report

ii) IIF-2: Crime Details Form
iii) IIF-3: Arrest memo
iv) IIF-4: Search and Seizure form
v) IIF-5: Final Form or Chargesheet
vi) IIF-6: Court Disposal Form
vii) IIF-7: Result of Appeal Form
The design and development of Crime Criminal Information System (CCIS) by NCRB was based on the
computerization of the seven IIFs. A typical case file which constitutes a crime record consists of IIF-1
to IIF-5 and contains all information pertaining to a specific case investigation for a registered crime
by Police.
The CCIS software was to be used by all District Crime Record Bureaux (DCRB) for consolidating
crime records from all Police Stations at a district level. All the DCRBs sent the computerized district
level crime records to the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) which in turn sent the CCIS records of
all cases to the national level database of NCRB.
The Crime Criminal Information System (CCIS) is a Government to Government (G2G) model that
aims at creating computerized storage, analysis and retrieval of crime criminal records at a national
level. Similar initiative was also followed for consolidating Fingerprint records at the national level at
CFPB, New Delhi.
In addition to CCIS NCRB has also developed the following e-governance applications systems for use
by State Police and consolidates records for preparation of national level crime statistics15.
• Police Station Management System

• Prison Statistics software
 Talaash-Missing persons software
 Jail Management Software
• Prosecution Branch System
15
IT resource center, NCRB, http://ncrb.gov.in/itresourcecentre.htm [Retrieved on 26-07-2013]
• Portrait Building System
• National Bomb Squad System and Forensic Science Laboratory System.
• Motor Vehicle Information Counters (MVIC)16
While the initial focus of computerization in Police was centered around consolidation of
maintenance of crime records for generation of crime statistics at a National and State level to be
referred to as an important information for legislation purposes at Parliament and State legislatures,
an increasing need was felt to automate the functions of Police Station centered around crime and
criminal investigation.
This need led to the conceptualization and development of the Common Integrated Police
Application (CIPA) by NIC at a national level under the MPF scheme during the early years of the last
decade (2002-2005). The CIPA project was a centrally driven project implemented in three phases
across select Police Stations across all the States/UTs aimed at computerization of workflow at Police
station level. The CIPA was a standalone system based on a client-server model implemented
individually at each Police Station. Web versions of CIPA and CCIS came into existence in latter
period of which details are discussed further.
The key difference between CCIS and CIPA initiatives was that CIPA application was designed for
automation of Police workflow functions, while CCIS catered to the crime records management and
maintenance function at district level based on 7 IIFs. The CIPA module has 5 functional modules
Registration, Investigation, Prosecution, Search and Reports.
The Registration module represents the first block of Police station work flow which enables the
Police to register complaints and qualify them to be registered as a case for investigation as First
Information Report (FIR) which is also the IIF-1. Further the Investigation module has been designed
to capture all details of investigation which corresponds to the IIFs-2,3,4 and 5. Once the
investigation is completed and IIF-5 (Final form/Charge sheet) is filed, the case moves to the
prosecution and Courts for final judgment which form the basis of Prosecution module (represents
IIF,5 and 6 in addition to other functions. The CCIS application was designed to enter all IIFs and
maintain them for crime records purposes. It is to be noted that one case file representing one case
registered and taken up for investigation17.
Although CIPA project was in progress and CCIS was functioning for crime records purposes, certain
States had independently planned for comprehensive Software for catering to the needs of the
respective Police Department. Notable among them are i) eCOPS Software and associated softwares
by Andhra Pradesh Police Department, ii) Police-IT software by Karnataka Police Department,
designed as an ERP for the entire Department and iii) Home Department –Integrated Information
System (HDIITS) software by Gujarat Police Department. In addition to the above the State of West
Bengal has developed the Thana Tracker System and Tamil Nadu had developed CAARUS application.
Meanwhile there was also progress with respect to automation of Fingerprints storage and retrieval
in the form of new softwares and devices.
The Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) was software implemented at the State
Fingerprint Bureaux of most of the States under MPF. The above State initiatives and the Central
Government initiatives of CCIS and CIPA can be considered as the first wave of e-Governance
initiatives planned and implemented by Police Departments. It is to be noted that by the middle of
last decade, all the Police Departments had software and hardware, however implemented
16
Legacy systems, http://ncrb.gov.in/ [Retrieved on 18-07-2013]
17
Model SI RFP, http://ncrb.nic.in/CCTNS%20Nodal%20Officer/Model%20SI%20RFP%20for%20States%20V2.pdf [Retrieved
on 23-07-2013]
disparately to be silos. This can also be linked to the progress of penetration of internet into the
hinterland through national level IT infrastructure projects and availability of efficient bandwidth.
Although Police was also parallelly using wireless and telecommunication for communications, the
focus on e-Government and ICT adoption were mostly restricted to urban areas and large
commissionerates. Given below is brief description of CCIS and CIPA initiatives.
3.1 Crime and Criminal information System (CCIS)
As mentioned above, CCIS is a national project of sharable database on crime and criminals at
district, state and national level for assisting investigating and supervising officers and police
planners to formulate crime-control strategies. It has been upgraded to CCIS MLe in the year 2005 as
multi-lingual application with facility for different local languages i.e. Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil,
Kannada and Gurmukhi besides English and Hindi. The application has been web-enabled so that
field level investigating and supervisory officers can access the CCIS databases at national and State
levels through internet anywhere – anytime.
The main objectives of the CCIS are to
• Computerize crime and criminal information collected by Inquiry Officer

• Link a crime to criminal and property
• Link a criminal to crime
• Link a property to crime
• Link unidentified dead bodies, kidnapped persons, missing etc.
• Generate vital reports from database
• Reduce manual effort and increase efficiency, of police
• Restoration of stolen property to legitimate owner
CCIS is perhaps one of the most widespread police application in the world implemented across 28
States and 7 UTs of the country in 727 police districts which act as sources for information to be
consolidated at national level at NCRB. In CCIS, the information is collected at district level not at
primary source of information i.e. the police station. Typical CCIS architecture is presented below18.
Figure 3: Typical CCIS architecture
18
Crime Data mining for Indian Police Information System, Manish Gupta,B.Chandra and MP Gupta (),http://www.csi-
sigegov.org/1/40_410.pdf, [Retrieved on 21-07-2013]
3.2 Common Integrated Police Application
The Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) aims at automation of all functions carried out at
the police stations, the primary source of crime and criminal information. CIPA software has been
designed and developed by NIC in English language with multilingual interface developed for Indian
languages.
This project is aimed at building in a planned manner infrastructure and mechanism to provide the
basis for evolution for Crime and Criminal Information System (CCIS) which is uniform across the
country from police station level onwards. The CIPA application is developed in JAVA, and
implemented under Open Source environment viz. LINUX (Operating System), PostGreSQL (RDBMS)
aimed at covering around 30% of Police stations (~ 4000) in the country.
The Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) programme was initiated in the year 2004-05 as a
component of the “Modernisation of State Police Forces (MPF)” scheme of the Ministry of Home
Affairs. The aim of the CIPA was to bring about computerization and automation in the functioning
at the police station with a view to bringing in efficiency and transparency in various processes and
functions at the police station level and improve service delivery to the citizens19. Given below is the
description of various functionalities of CIPA.
“Registration: This module facilitates the duty officers in registering a case by capturing details of
complainant, accused, properties stolen/involved, victims, place and time of occurrence, etc. The
functions roughly correspond to the fields of IIF-1 form (FIR).
Investigation: The module allows the Investigating officers (IOs) to record the events of
developments/progress from time to time in the case like Arrest,surrender,seizure of properties,
witness statements. The module also enables entry of text into the case diary.
Prosecution: The module enables the Investigating Officer (IO) to record the events relating to the
prosecution stage, like Court hearing, Summons, Warrants issues etc.
Information module: The module enables maintaining of various details of crimes and criminals
within the jurisdiction of Police station like Modus Operandi, History sheeters,etc.
Registers/Reports/Queries: This functionality generates various reports, registers and outputs

required at different levels.
General Station Diary: This feature captures information recorded by Police stations in its General
Station Diary/Daily Station Dairy.”
In addition to the above, CIPA also supports state specific customizations. The software is a total
work-flow system with three major modules viz., Registration, Investigation and Prosecution along
with Reports and Queries modules20. The core workflow of CIPA is presented in the illustration given
below21.
19
CIPA, http://www.cipa.gov.in/cipa/index.jsp, [Retrieved on 18-07-2013]
20
CIPA, http://www.cipa.gov.in/cipa/pdf/cipabros.pdf, [Retrieved on 18-07-2013]
21
Ibid
Figure 4: Core workflow of CIPA
3.3 Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS)
Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) aims at creating a comprehensive and
integrated system for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of policing at the Police Station
level through adoption of principles of e-Governance, and creation of a nationwide networked
infrastructure for evolution of IT-enabled state-of-the-art tracking system around “investigation of
crime and detection of criminals” in the real time, which is a critical requirement in the context of
the present day internal security scenario.
The project is a 100% funded centrally funded scheme with ownership and responsibility of
implementation and operations provided to the States/UTs. Thus CCTNS brings together all the
States and UTs in coordination with Ministry of Home Affairs of Government of India as key
stakeholders and primary drivers of the project along with other major stakeholders of the
Government keeping in line with the federal polity and Government of the country22.
In order to conceptualize the CCTNS Project in detail, a series of consultations were held with all
stakeholders, viz., the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which will host the Project at the
Central Government level on behalf of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the State Governments who
would be the major users, the Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India
and the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which has been the functioning as the implementing
agency for CIPA.
In addition, detailed discussions have also been held with other organizations which could provide
necessary technical and domain inputs for the Project, viz., the Bureau of Police Research and
Development (BPR&D), Directorate of Coordination and Police Wireless (DCPW), Institute of
Criminology and Forensic Sciences, Directorate of Forensic Sciences, Finger Prints Bureaux (FPB), etc.
An Expert Sub-Group comprising domain experts and officers from the State Police was also
constituted, and the Sub-Group held detailed deliberations in order to firm up the contours and
components of the Project, which were further discussed in various forums, in which senior police
officers of the States including Directors General of Police participated. A Conference of State Home
Secretaries and Directors General of Police was also organized on 21.05.2008. Based on these
discussions a Detailed Project Report was prepared.
Given below is a brief introduction to the key stakeholders responsible for enabling e-Governance
for improving Policing outcomes in the country.
i) People: The residents and citizens of the country are the primary stakeholders to whom
Police provides its services. The features of online crime/incident reporting and the
general services like Tenant/passport/Domestic help verification/etc. that CCTNS aims to
provide build additional channels of access for the people to the services of Police
Department.
ii) State Police Departments/State Governments and UT administrations: The Police
Department of States/UTs are the most important stakeholders as the project is
designed for enabling e-Governance into the day to day functioning of Police stations
with respect to crime and criminal investigation. The Police personnel at all levels
therefore become the most important stakeholders at various stages of the project right
from planning, design and implementation to operations and sustainable function of e-
Governance in Police Department. It is to be noted that Police have multiple
responsibilities in functions like Law and order maintenance, crime and criminal
22
Excerpts of Cabinet Note on Economic Affairs, Implementation Guidelines to States,
http://ncrb.gov.in/cctns.htm [ Retrieved on 21-07-2013]
investigation, crime prevention, intelligence, providing security to VIPs, etc., however
the CCTNS is built around the core functions of Police i.e., Crime detection and Crime
prevention, thus focusing on the crime and criminal investigation requirements of the
Department. The State Crime Records Bureaux (SCRB) are the state level nodal
implementation agencies which are aided by the District level offices for project
implementation.
iii) Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA): The Ministry of Home Affairs of Government of India
is the project sponsor and monitoring and funding agency of CCTNS project. The MHA in
coordination with Ministry of Finance and Planning commission provides funds to the
States and monitors the project through National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the
nodal implementation agency for the project at national level.
iv) National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB): NCRB, an attached office of MHA has been
established with a mandate to empower Indian Police with Information Technology and
Criminal Intelligence to enable them to effectively enforce the law and improve public
service delivery. It is the national level nodal implementation agency for monitoring and
coordination of the CCTNS project implementation at all States/UTs. Further NCRB has
also been entrusted with the responsibility to develop and manage the Core Application
Software for CCTNS project which shall be provided to all the States/UTs for
customization as per the State specific requirements. NCRB also consolidates all state
level crime records databases at a national level for generation of crime statistics and
reports23.
v) Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeITY): The CCTNS project has
been designed to utilize core infrastructure of NeGP wherever feasible. This includes
SWAN, SDC, SSDG, MSDG and CSCs. In line with the same, the DeITY, Government of
India and the State IT Departments are key stakeholders of the project, for coordinating
and enabling implementation and operations support.
vi) Other Government Departments-Centre: The CCTNS project has also been designed to
integrate with key external agencies both at national and state level for sharing relevant
crime and criminal information. Such agencies include Passport offices, Transport
authorities, Immigration/Foreigner Registration offices, etc. The Ministry of Law and
Justice is another stakeholder which provides legal review support to the project. Other
key stakeholders within MHA and other Central Government ministries which have
information sharing requirements with CCTNS are BPR&D, Central Bureau Investigation
(CBI), Intelligence Bureau (IB), National Technology and Research Organization (NTRO),
Enforcement Directorate (ED), National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID), etc.
vii) Other Government Departments-States: At the State level, where the actual Policing
functions take place, the key stakeholders for CCTNS are Courts, Jails and Prosecution
Departments. The three Departments in coordination with the Police Department
complete the core criminal investigation/justice processes. In addition to the four
Departments, information sharing requirements with important stakeholders like
Transport, Hospitals, Forensic labs, Fingerprint Bureau, etc. become an essential part of
investigation process.
viii) Service Providers: While all the above stakeholders are the organizations/individuals for
which e-Governance is being implemented, the actual implementation is done by
various Service providers from both private and public sector. Some of the key
stakeholders are as follows.
23
Excerpts of Cabinet Note on Economic Affairs, Implementation Guidelines to States,
http://ncrb.gov.in/cctns.htm [ Retrieved on 21-07-2013]
a. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL): BSNL is the network and connectivity service
provider for CCTNS project across the country.
b. National Informatics Centre: The NIC provides hosting services for National Data
Centre and Disaster Recovery Centre for all the States and Centre for the CCTNS
project.
c. System Integrator Agencies: The actual implementation of “Bundle of Services” for
CCTNS at all States/UTs is done by System Integrator agencies mostly from private
sector. The agencies are selected through a procurement process by the States/UTs
as per guidelines of MHA. At the national level NCRB has selected a Software
Development Agency for design, development and implementation of the Core
Application Software and also to host the national level infrastructure for CCTNS.
The system integrator agencies responsible for running SDC and SWAN projects also
have a role to play in enabling infrastructure and network availability.
d. Consultant agencies: The National Institute of Smart Government (NISG) is the
Central project management consultant of CCTNS project. Other consultant agencies
from private and public sector were also selected and empanelled by MHA for
providing consulting and project management services to MHA and States/UTs.
e. Standardization Testing and Quality Certification (STQC): The STQC of DeITY is the
agency which performs conformity assessment of the software and also provides
certifications for enabling Go-Live of CCTNS project.
The key stakeholders of CCTNS project are depicted in the illustration given below24.
Figure 5: Key stakeholders of CCTNS
The CCTNS project which consolidates all the Police e-Governance programs in the country was
initiated for providing a state of the art integrated solution and a nation-wide networked
24
CCTNS Stakeholder map, NCRB, http://ncrb.gov.in/cctns.htm [ Retrieved on 21-07-2013]
infrastructure for sharing real-time crime and criminal information across more than 15000 police
stations and nearly 6000 higher offices in 28 States and 7 UTs of the country. The project also aims at
integration with external agencies like Courts, Jails, Passport, Immigration, Transport, etc., and
providing online services to citizens and residents of the country25.
The following are the objectives of the CCTNS project as defined in the MHA guidelines.
(a) “Make the Police functioning citizen friendly, transparent, accountable, effective and
efficient by automating the processes and functions at the level of the Police Stations
and other police offices at various levels.
(b) Improving delivery of citizen-centric services through effective usage of Information &
Communication Technology (ICT).
(c) Provide the Investigating Officers with the tools, technologies and information to
facilitate faster and more accurate investigation of crime and detection of criminals.
(d) Improve the Police functioning in various other areas such as Law & Order, Traffic
Management, curbing organised crimes, resource management etc.
(e) Facilitate collection, storage, retrieval, analysis, transfer and sharing of data and
Information among Police Stations, Districts, State headquarters and other
organisations/agencies, including those at Government of India level.
(f) Enabling and assisting the senior Police Officers in better management of Police Force
(g) Keep track of the progress of the crime and criminal investigation and prosecution
Cases, including progress of cases in the Courts.
(h) Reduction in manual and redundant Record keeping.”
The CCTNS program was conceptualized after comprehensive assessments and reviews of the
predecessor ICT initiatives in Police Departments implemented both by Centre and the States. The
lessons learnt from earlier initiatives including challenges, opportunities, limitations and critical
success factors were considered alignment with principles of e-Governance of NeGP for planning
and design of CCTNS project. The following were the key limitations and challenges identified with
respect to the implementation of earlier pan-India ICT initiatives in Police and were considered for
conceptualization of CCTNS project.
(i) Earlier initiatives were designed to function at their best as closed stand-alone systems
with limitations for sharing information across the systems. Accordingly the IT
infrastructure and networking solution designed around such applications was also
focused to run a closed stand-alone system.
(ii) The application architecture of the earlier ICT initiatives designed over the
corresponding dimensions of business/information/enterprise architecture and the IT
infrastructure solutions hosting the systems them, were not in sync with the emerging
needs for monitoring public security through information sharing and for providing
online services. This necessitated a need for developing Core Application Software (CAS)
with common data definitions, structure, schema and formats but which is yet flexible
for the States/UTs to customize as per their specific requirements.
(iii) The objectives of the earlier ICT initiatives were targeted towards collection of data as
required by the monitoring agencies, and primarily aimed at specific functions like
records management, statistical analysis, office automation etc.
(iv) The earlier systems were “Designer and Technology Centric” rather than “Stakeholder
centric” with respect to comprehensiveness in collection of user requirements. The
25
NCRB foundation and objectives http://ncrb.gov.in/cctns.htm [ Retrieved on 21-07-2013]
expectation from the designer of the earlier ICT systems was to create applications for
maximal collection of data for generation of reports. This had significantly increased the
burden on the operational staff to provide such exhaustive data for report generation
including redundant data entry and generation of redundant reports for the same
stakeholder without adequate analysis.
(v) The earlier initiatives created a need for dedicated data entry operator assigned for data
capturing into Computer for all functions at Police Station rather than making
Information technology as a regular enabling function of the Department, where in the
staff themselves are trained and empowered to use ICT for performing their day to day
functions.
(vi) The earlier ICT initiatives focused on hardware/IT infrastructure implementation with a
lesser emphasis on service levels and public service delivery outcomes.
The project was initiated as a part of NeGP through adoption of principles of e-Governance like
“Centralized planning and decentralized implementation”, keeping in view that Police is a “State”
subject under the constitution of India. The salient features of the concept and design of CCTNS
project which are based on learning’s from the predecessor ICT initiatives in Police and NeGP
guidelines are as follows.
i) Earlier pan India initiatives of ICTs in Police were mostly driven by the Centre and States
played a support role. As ‘Police” is a State subject and all the ICT initiatives are for the
operations of State Police Departments for delivery of services to general public, a
strong need to empower the State Police right from project inception stages was felt.
Accordingly the CCTNS project has been designed to provide the entire ownership and
implementation responsibility to the State Police Departments with Centre limiting itself
to funding, guidance, support and monitoring.
ii) Provision of turnkey services and assignment of ownership of implementation and
operations responsibility for complex contracts involving multiple services is another
essential ingredient of project design.
iii) In CCTNS project, the System integrator agency selected at the State level through a bid
process provides “Bundle of Services26” viz., a) Site preparation and IT infrastructure
implementation, b) Software development/customization, c) Data digitization, d)
Training and Change management, e) Handholding, etc., on a turnkey basis and the
entire responsibility of project implementation as per the Service Level Agreement is of
the System Integrator. Further BSNL was identified and selected as the System
Integrator and service provider for providing “Network and Connectivity” solution to the
CCTNS project on a pan-Indian basis.
iv) Further CCTNS project has been designed based on “Staggered payments” approach
wherein the System Integrator gets regular payments upon successful compliance to
Service Level Agreements.
v) Leveraging the existing and core infrastructure of NeGP is another key consideration for
planning and design of CCTNS project. Accordingly wherever feasible, the infrastructure
and facilities created under SWAN, SDC, SSDG, etc. would be utilized for the CCTNS
project27.
26
Implementation guidelines to States, http://ncrb.nic.in/Guidelines%20to%20States%20V3.pdf, Retrieved on
23-07-2013]
27
Implementation guidelines to States, http://ncrb.nic.in/Guidelines%20to%20States%20V3.pdf [Retrieved on
23-07-2013]
vi) An Application platform which can share information over a network with other external
applications through interfacing and integration is an essential requirement for meeting
the objectives of CCTNS project with respect to information sharing across States,
agencies and also provide citizen services. Accordingly, the need to develop a Core
Application Software (CAS) based on the principles of Service Oriented Architecture
emanated as a key consideration in the design of CCTNS project. The key features of CAS
are illustrated below.28
Figure 6: Core
Application Software
(CAS) Features
vii) CCTNS project aims at providing online services to citizens and residents of the country.
This component not only includes development of internet as an additional medium to
access core police services like incident/crime reporting, but also to providing general
services like Tenant/Domestic helps verification, Passport verification, etc.
viii) CCTNS application has been conceptualized to interface with external agencies like
Passports/Immigration/ Jails/ Courts/Transport Departments etc. for sharing of relevant
information. This is in line with the objective of providing “Horizontal integration” of the
Police Department with relevant associated Departments/functions. The Horizontal
integration is meshed with the “Vertical Integration” of various units of Police
Departments. The functional view of the CAS with respect to the modules with respect
to various “Services/modules” and external interfaces is presented below29.
28
Ibid
29
System Integrator RFP,
http://www.delhipolice.nic.in/home/RFP/RFP%20Delhi%20upload/CCTNS_%20RFP_Delhi_Technical%20and%2
0Functional%20Requirement%20Vol%201.pdf [Retrieved on 23-07-2013]
Figure 7: CAS – The Major Functional Modules
ix) CCTNS application has also been conceptualized to interface with external applications
and devices like AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Information System), Mobile devices, etc.
x) The CAS software developed as two units, a) CAS (Centre) on Java technologies for the
use of NCRB, b) CAS (State) built in two different stacks/ versions (Microsoft and Java
technologies) which will be provided to the States for further customization as per State
specific needs. The States have a choice to choose any one of the two stacks. The CAS
(State) itself is built as two components, a) CAS Offline version to be used as the Police
Station software and b) CAS (Online) version which is the default version which on a
regular basis synchronizes with CAS (offline) based on the availability of the connectivity.
The various components of CAS application are presented in the below illustration30,31.
30
Core Application Software, http://www.tnpolice.gov.in/pdfs/cctns_cas.pdf [Retrieved on 25-07-2013]
Figure 8: Components of CAS application
xi) The CAS (State) is the browser based web application hosted at the State Data Centre or
the Police Data Centre over a CCTNS Wide Area Network, an intranet dedicated to the
Police Department. The CAS (State) application also has a Citizen portal through which
the Department provides informational services to the citizens, in addition to the facility
of online crime reporting/incident reporting, Reporting tips or clues to the Police with
respect to investigations and General Service Requests.
xii) The CAS also interfaces with external applications like the software for Courts, Jails,
Passports, Transport and Immigration through State Service Delivery Gateway and the
National Service Delivery Gateway.
xiii) The CCTNS solution is hosted on a hybrid network which leverages use of shared
infrastructure of NeGP wherever feasible32. The CCTNS network runs on i) MPLS links
between State Data Centres and National Data Centre/ DR site, ii) MPLS links for
identified key locations in the State, iii) VPNoBB links for locations which are away from
the SWAN PoP, iv) P2P links over SWAN, v) LAN at sites which are co-located with SWAN
PoP and vi) VSAT and Wimax links for identified remote locations33. The high level
network architecture of CCTNS is depicted in the illustration below34.
31
Model SI RFP, http://ncrb.nic.in/CCTNS%20Nodal%20Officer/Model%20SI%20RFP%20for%20States%20V2.pdf,
[Retrieved on 23-07-2013]
32
MHA/NCRB-BSNL contract, sourced from NCRB, New Delhi, http//:ncrb.nic.in [Retrieved on 21-07-2013]
33
Report on evaluation of CCTNS project, http://www.mha.nic.in/pdfs/IIPA-Report-CCTNS.pdf [Retrieved on 1-
08-2013]
34
BSNL’s proposal to MHA for CCTNS project, NCRB and BSNL MSA, http//:ncrb.nic.in [Retrieved on 21-07-
2013]
Figure 9: CCTNS Network architecture
xiv) Further CCTNS also aims at providing specialized solutions and infrastructure like GIS
based Crime Analytics tools, Computer Aided Dispatch solutions, Mobile Data Terminals,
etc., for further enhancing Policing functions. Given below is the functional model of
CCTNS as sourced from CCTNS implementation guidelines of NCRB35.
Figure 8: CCTNS functional model
3.4 Police-IT project and other ICT initiatives
The Police-IT project was conceptualized by the Government of Karnataka for implementation of a
State-wide IT solution for the Police Department with the following objectives.
i) Improvement of ease of administration

ii) Better access to information for both public and across departments
iii) Improved crime detection
35
CCTNS functional model, Implementation guidelines to States and Model SI RFP,
http://ncrb.nic.in/CCTNS%20Nodal%20Officer/Model%20SI%20RFP%20for%20States%20V2.pdf, [Retrieved on 23-07-2013]
iv) Improved communication
v) Cross-functional integration
vi) Better service to public
The Police-IT solution can be broadly categorized into three components, i) Police-IT 2000 software,
ii) Hardware and other IT/enabling infrastructure at client locations and Data Centre and iii)
Networking and connectivity.
The Department, represented by SCRB took a decision with the approval of Government to
independently manage and implement the components (i) and (ii) mentioned above, instead of
obtaining the services for the same from a single turnkey service provider. The Department also
took a decision to obtain networking (infrastructure) and connectivity (bandwidth) through BSNL,
the public sector service provider for functioning of Police-IT project. The implementation of the
entire project across the three components was to be coordinated through a dedicated Project
Management Office (PMO), established at SCRB.
As early as 1999, a techno-economic feasibility study was conducted and a Detailed Project Report
was submitted to Government of Karnataka for Police IT project implementation. One of the
important aspects of the Police-IT project proposal is that very early into the era of e-Governance,
the project was planned for three separate components viz., Hardware/IT infrastructure, Software
and Networking, right at the outset instead of focusing on procurement of hardware or
development of software36. A high level System Requirement Specifications (SRS) document was
prepared to define the system specifications of the Police-IT software. As per SRS, the Police-IT
application was conceptualized as a bespoke Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) suite for Police with
the following modules.
a. Law and Order

b. Crime
c. Administration
d. Finance
e. Stores
f. Motor Transport
g. Training
h. Armed Reserve
i. Traffic
j. Wireless/Control Room
k. Forensic Laboratory (FSL)
l. Executive Information System
Based on a bid process, a software development agency was selected by the State and a contract
was signed in 2004 for design, development, implementation and maintenance of Police-IT. It is also
to be noted that the Department was independently handling Hardware/IT infrastructure
implementation at all Police stations and M/s BSNL was engaged to provide network for Police-IT for
all Police stations and higher offices. After initial problems in implementation, the design and
development effort of Police-IT commenced in 2004-2005 and the software was piloted in 2007-
2008 for Crime and Law and Order modules. By 2010-2011, all the modules of the project were
tested and piloted and the project went live at all the Police stations and higher offices of Karnataka.
The Police Department of Karnataka had also created a dedicated Data Centre for Police-IT project
and all the Police stations and higher offices have been connected through a dedicated Karnataka
36
Police-IT : http://bprd.nic.in/writereaddata/linkimages/8814286512-police-IT-initiative.pdf [Retrieved on 21-07-2013]
State Police Wide Area Network37. The Police-IT application is developed as bilingual (English and
Kannada) software and after extensive pilot testing has now been stabilized and is functional at all
the Police stations and higher offices in the State.
Given below are the key features of Police-IT application.
 “Web enabled
 Multi user & bilingual application
 Role based access controlled application
 User authenticity
 Workflow oriented
 Distributed/Centralized architecture
 Data flow across various levels right from Police Stations up to DGP office
 Deployable over Intranet and Internet
 Provides Web services which gives XML based result for External Application Interface
 Based on .Net Framework Technology from Microsoft
 Developed in ASP.Net with MS-SQL as Backend
 Reporting using Crystal Reports and uses Adobe PDF format for Report transmission”
A brief note on other ICT initiatives in the State of Karnataka provides an understanding on the need
for consolidation and the agenda for IT management in the State. CCIS which was launched across
the country in 1994 was successfully implemented by Karnataka at all its Police stations and
Karnataka has the one the largest CCIS database in the country with close to ~21 million records. In
view of the Police-IT project implementation, CIPA software project which started as a nation-wide
initiative in 2004-2005 was not implemented in the State of Karnataka, however hardware/IT
infrastructure provided under CIPA were utilized.
The Police Department of Government of Karnataka developed the Blackberry based Traffic
enforcement system in 2008. The application enables automated enforcement, easy data collection
at field level, verification of vehicle/driver attributes, enabling payments and processing for traffic
enforcement, etc. The details of offending vehicles are noted by the field level Traffic police and the
information is registered at the State level Data Centre and computerized challans are generated
and issued to the offender on the site itself through a Bluetooth® enabled handheld thermal printer
or sent to the Offender’s address. Initially implemented in Bangalore city successfully, the project
has now been launched in other major urban centres of Karnataka in 2012.
The Police Department is also currently implementing the video surveillance project for traffic
management in 6 urban centres including Bangalore city, wherein Wireless video cameras are
installed at specific locations in the State for monitoring of traffic violations and other incidents. The
video surveillance project in conjunction with Blackberry application and the Police-IT system form
an efficient solution for Traffic management.
The State Police department also implemented the e-Beat system to ensure accountability and
efficiency of beat management. The e-Beat system was introduced in 2004, however was scaled up
for all the beat locations in the State in the subsequent years. The e-Beat system replaces the Point
Book kept at the beat locations/areas with a RFID tag (Radio Frequency Identification) tag which
contains a microchip with a unique identifier.
The RFID chip contains information on the beat schedule and other unique beat Identifiers details.
The Beat constable carries a RFID Beat reader to read the unique identifiers (date and time of visit
37
Police-IT project, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_IT [Retrieved on 24-07-2013]
and identity of the official) from the RFID tags kept at all the assigned beat locations. The beat
constables return the RFID readers to the Police station and the contents of the RFID reader
information are downloaded at Police station level. The system has been designed to ensure that
beat constable regularly visits the beats and stays regularly on beat locations to act as a deterrent to
unlawful activities in the beat area. The Station House Officer (SHO) monitors the information
collected from eBeat readers for better resource scheduling, crime prevention and human resource
management. The RFID identifiers and schedules are updated and maintained on a regular basis.
In addition to the above projects, the Police Department of Karnataka has also implemented Dial
100, GIS based Crime Analysis and Reporting Engine (GCARE), Automated Fingerprint Identification
System (AFIS), GPS based Automated Vehicle Locating System (AVLS), Investigation
management/Crime Analytics software, HRMS, etc. as independent initiatives.
The Police Department has developed Police Computer Wing (PCW) at its SCRB and has trained
selected personnel to efficiently manage the Police computer operations at a State level. Today all
the 917 Police stations and 454 higher offices in the State are connected to the State Police Data
Centre over a dedicated Wide Area Network and use Police-IT software for day to day operations.
The KSPWAN architecture is illustrated as follows38.
Figure 10: Karnataka State Police Wide Area Network
38
SI RFP,CCTNS-Karnataka and CCTNS presentation, SCRB,Karnataka
http://ncrb.gov.in/All%20State%20RFP/A%20&%20N%20Islands/SI%20RFP%20-%20All%20Volumes.pdf [Retrieved on 12-
07-2013]
While Crime and Law and Order modules are the most widely used software functions, the usage of
other modules is also increasing and the entire Police-IT project has been considered as a part of the
CCTNS program.
When the CCTNS program started in 2009, the Central Government identified the significant
progress made by Karnataka in adoption of ICTs and considered the State as an “Advanced State”.
The State was allowed to continue and use the ongoing Police-IT software and was exempted from
using the national level Core Application Software (CAS).However the State had to baseline the
Police-IT software as per CAS specifications and develop bridge software for transfer of consolidated
SCRB data to the national level CAS (Centre) software of NCRB. Since 2009-2010, all the ICT projects
were streamlined under the CCTNS umbrella and all the pending Change Requests and incomplete
tasks essential for Go-Live of Police-IT software have been completed.
“The Police-IT system is also responsible for the Karnataka State Police (KSP) portal which provides 21
online services to the residents of the State. The Police portal has been integrated with the State
Government’s SAKALA initiative portal (Karnataka Guaranteed Services to Citizens Act), wherein the
user can track the pendency of the application for services39. Some of the services provided by Police
Department through SAKALA and KSP website are given below.
 Issue of copy of FIR to the complainant – Immediate

 Receipt of petitions – 30 Minutes
 Missing Report of documents, Mobile phone, Credit Cards etc., – 1 Day
 License for Amplified Sound System – 3 Days
 Permission for peaceful assembly and procession – 7 to 15 Days
 NOC for Extension of Visa – 7 Days
 NOC for petrol pump, gas agency, hotel, bar etc., 7 Days
 NOC for Crackers License – 7 Days
 License for Amusement – 15 Days
 Disposal of Petition – 15 Days
 Passport Verification – 20 Days
 Service Verification Local jurisdiction Outside jurisdiction – 20 to 45 Days
 Arms License Verification District – 30 Days”
The Department also launched SMS based alert services to all the applicants on Police portal and
SAKALA in 2013. Further the KSP has also implemented BPR initiatives to strengthen reducing the
passport verification time in line with the use of Police-IT and the Passport software applications.
The Department is also finalizing the integration requirements of Police-IT with e-Courts software of
Karnataka. The Police-IT and other ICT initiatives in Karnataka present certain best practice
examples for e-Governance in policing and the same have been explained in detail in further
sections.
39
SAKALA, http://karnataka.gov1.in/sakala-services/ [ Retrieved on 8-07-2013]
3.5 eCOPS project
eCOPS (e-Computerized Operations for Police Services-Online Police Network) project was proposed
in the year 2000, with a view to build improved IT infrastructure for enhancing the operational
efficiency at all levels of the Police Department. The project was implemented in a phase-wise
approach; where in all the higher offices (District Police offices, Training centres, Special battalions,
etc.) of the State were covered in the first phase (also included all Police stations in three
Commissionerates of Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam and Srikakulum district). In the
second phase all the Police stations and offices of functional units of Department (CID, Training,
Marine, Railways, etc.) were covered. In the subsequent phases activities like eCOPS development,
IT infrastructure development and hosting of eCOPS at a state-wide network were completed.
Although eCOPS was in the implementation phase, CIPA project was in parallel implemented in 4
districts of Andhra Pradesh. Prior to eCOPS, CCIS was also implemented in the State for crime
records maintenance and management.
By 2009-10, eCOPS software was functioning at all the Police stations and higher offices in the State.
e COPS is the key application of AP Police Department along with other software applications within
the eCOPS ecosystem. In 2009, the CCTNS program was initiated as the national level e-Governance
initiatives for Police under which the State of Andhra Pradesh was given the status of an “Advanced
State” along with Karnataka, Gujarat, Goa and Tamil Nadu. This was in view of the significant
progress made by the State in e-Governance in Police through the eCOPS project. The State was
allowed to continue with the existing eCOPS software and since 2009-10, the State is implementing
the eCOPS project under CCTNS program. The State is also in the process of consolidating all the ICT
initiatives under the Enterprise eCOPS platform. Given below is a brief introduction on eCOPS and
other associated software being used by Andhra Pradesh.
eCOPS is a web based application working in tandem with other associated adjunct applications. It
provides a platform for computerizing all key investigation operations from filing an FIR through
creating the Final form/Charge sheet. eCOPS is accessible across hierarchy levels and state-wide
locations so as to enable easy access of information throughout the Department and facilitate faster
and better decision making and crime prevention via information collation and collaborative
action40. eCOPS and associated software automates the Crime related transactional functionalities
at Police Stations and have been designed to provide the following functions of the Department.
 “Provide enhanced tools for Crime Investigation, Crime Prevention, Law and Order
maintenance and other functions like Traffic Management, Emergency Response
Management System etc.
 Utilize IT for efficiency and effectiveness of core policing operations
 Provide information for easier and faster analysis and trends
 Increase operational efficiency by reducing manual and repetitive operations
 Improving the communication by providing facilities viz. Police
 Messaging, email systems, alerts, notifications etc. via associated adjunct applications
 Automating back-office operations and thereby provide Police Personnel more time to focus
on core police activities.
 Create platforms at State and Central levels for sharing Crime and
 Criminal Information (database) across the state and across the country (in the future) to
enable easy sharing of real-time information across Police Stations and Districts at the state
level and across states at the National level thereby resulting in:
o Improved Investigation and Crime Prevention
40
eCOPS-http://ncrb.nic.in/All%20State%20RFP/Andhra%20Pradesh/AP_CCTNS_RFP_Vol-I_(27.05.11).pdf, [Retrieved on
21-07-2013]
o Better tracking of Criminals, Suspects, Accused, and Repeat Offenders etc.
 Create a platform for sharing intelligence across the country and across various agencies
involved therein.
 Improve services for public/ citizen/ stakeholders, such as:
 Access to Police Services in a citizen-friendly manner
 Provide alternate modes of service delivery such as internet
 Track status and development during Courts / Prosecution activities
 Maintaining records of Criminals and Organized Gangs.
 Generating various statutory registers required to be maintained by the Police Station, and
periodic statements to be sent to the higher levels. “
Citizen Portal:
As a web based application, a separate Portal module is also part of the eCOPS ecosystem. The
eCOPS Portal module provides the following services.
 Document delivery status

 Lost and recovered vehicles
 Lost and recovered mobiles
 Report crime
 Safety tips
 Fighting terror
 Know your case status
 Status of Passport Verification Application (in Hyderabad and Cyberabad)
 Right to information act
 Missing persons/unknown dead bodies, most wanted persons etc.
 Recruitment related information
Third Eye:
The Third Eye application is a database driven search software that helps in crime investigation by
providing information regarding mobile phones, telephones, passports, ration-cards, voter-ids,
vehicle registrations etc. This application provides a single point search for various identification
attributes associated with a citizen. It provides access to all kinds of databases thereby eliminating
the need to travel to various departments to collect information such as RTO, Cell Phone Service
Providers, Revenue, RPO and Election commission etc.41.
Criminal Intelligence System- an Investigation tool
The Criminal Intelligence System (CIS) empowers and enables Investigating Police Officers to access
and search the criminal data base of entire state and obtain results instantaneously. The key
functionalities of the software include, Classification of offenders, Personal details, Physical features,
Photographs, Finger prints, Family history, Socio economic profile, Regular places of visit, Crime
classification, Arrest details, Dressing patterns, Activities before and after offence, Local contacts,
Conveyance details, Share of amount spent, Property disposal, Receivers, Sureties, Defense council,
Other cases confessed, Convictions, Acquittals, NBW’s, Missing person/dead bodies’ details, Search,
Photographs, Articles, Identification marks, Automated system matching between missing &
41
21-07-2013]
unidentified dead bodies, Lost vehicle details, Recovered vehicle details, Crime involved vehicle
details, automated match between lost and recovered vehicles, Automated match between lost and
recovered mobiles, Jail stay & acquaintance, Jail mulakats, Jail releases, Non-Bail able warrants &
execution.
Call Analysis Tool
This tool helps the investigation officer in analyzing the Call Data Record (CDR) of mobile networks. It
helps generate comprehensive reports detailing items like: Called / calling number, Total outgoing /
incoming calls, Odd time calls, Group by IMEI, Group by tower, "travelling path", "un-natural calls"
etc.
Investigation Support Centre application
The application assists the Investigating Officer (IO) by providing templates for various
communications, check list for each activity they perform during the course of investigation and
standardized operating procedures for different type of cases. The help tool is available along with
search option for easy operations.
In addition to the above applications, the following software are also part of the eCOPS ecosystem.
(i) SCRB software

(ii) Issue Tracking system
(iii) Police office online information system
(iv) AP Police email system
(v) AP Police messaging system
(vi) Foreigner’s registration
(vii) Passport and Immigration verification system
Given below is the network architecture of eCOPS which connects nearly ~ 2400 locations across the
State including 1662 Police stations and 735 higher offices42.
Figure 11: Network Diagram of AP Police
42
21-07-2013]
Currently the AP Police is in the process of enhancing the eCOPS through consolidation of all its
applications into an Enterprise eCOPS platform under the CCTNS program. The technology
components and stacks of above mentioned components of eCOPS is given in the table below43.
SNo Core applications Technology used DB Deployment

1 “eCOPS Java J2EE, Ajax, Oracle 10g Win/IIS 6.0
BIRT Reports
2 Criminal .NET Framework SQL Server Win/IIS 6.0
Intelligence 2.0, AJAX 2005
System Framework 1.0,
Crystal Reports
3 AP Police .Net / Win Oracle 10g Web
Messaging System
4 AP Police website Java J2EE, DOJO Oracle 10g Win/ JBOSS

4.0.4
5 Investigation Java J2EE, DOJO, Oracle 10g Win/ JBOSS
Support Center AJAX 4.0.4
6 Call Analysis Tool NET Framework Oracle 10g Win/IIS 6.0

2.0, AJAX
Framework 1.0
7 Mailing System Netcore Mail SQL Server Web

Server / Linux 2005
8 Personnel Visual Basic 6.0 SQL Server Win/ JBOSS

Information (Client 2005
System & Pay Roll Application at
System DPOs),
Java (Web
Application)
9 Passport .Net / Win Oracle 10g Web

Application
10 Issue Tracking .NET Framework Oracle 10g Win/IIS 6.0”

System 2.0, AJAX
Framework 1.0
“Table 1: Components of eCOPS”
43
21-07-2013]
3.6 HD-IITS (Home Department- Integrated Information System)
Home Department Integrated IT System (HDIITS) for Home Department of Government of Gujarat
(GoG), has developed a solution to integrate all functions of Home Department and its Head of
Departments and with functionality for consolidated Management Information Systems and
Integrated reports. HDIITS application is based on J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) architecture for
expandability, robustness, platform independence. The system is Unicode compliant and platform
independent. The HDIITS solution is component based providing modular and efficient design to
realize the following objectives44:
 “Web based GUI for all the business functionality

 Integrated web based workflow
 Optimal response time
 Audit trails on transactions and performance of the application
 System provides for the following primary interfaces
 Intranet for all application HDIITS users
 Efficient management of the data, information & knowledge
 Easy Interfacing with current system
 High availability
 Highly transactional as well as MIS capable for all data elements”
Figure 12: Overall solution architecture of HDIITS
In
addition to Police Department, the HD-IITs solution also caters to the functions of other
Departments under Home Department like Jails, Anti-Corruption Bureau, Gujarat State Police
44
HD-IITS RFP of CCTNS project http://ncrb.gov.in/All%20State%20RFP/Gujrat/Revised%20RFP%20-%20HDIITS.pdf.
Housing Corporation, Civil defense, Vigilance, Sainik Kalyan Board, Prohibition, Home guard, HRMS,
etc. The overall solution architecture of HDIITS45 is given above.
The HD-IITS application designed like an ERP suite is similar to the Police-IT application of Karnataka.
However HD-IITS caters to the entire functions of Home Department of which Police Department is a
major unit. Further HD-IITS is built over J2EE framework compared to the .NET framework of Police-
IT platform.
The HD-IITS was also started in 2006-07 and now is being implemented under the CCTNS program.
Gujarat has also been considered as an advanced State due to the considerable progress made by
the State under the HD-IITS program and has been allowed to continue its use of HD-IITS software.
Currently Gujarat is implementing CCTNS project and enhancing HD-IITS as per CCTNS requirements
and implementing the project in 1000+ locations in the State. Given below is an illustration of
envisaged integration/interfacing for HD-IITS as a part of CCTNS program46.
Figure 13: Envisaged integration/interfacing for HD-IITS as a part of CCTNS program
45
HD-IITS http://egovreach.in/uploads/presentation/ahmedabad/Home_Dept_Integrated_IT_Solutions.pdf [Retrieved on
23-07-2013]
46
Ibid
3.7 CAARUS
The State of Tamil Nadu is an “Advanced” State under the CCTNS project considering the progress
made by the State Police Department in implementation of Crime Analysis and Automated Report
Update System (CAARUS) software47. The CAARUS project was initiated in 2006 and all the Police
stations were provided with computer as a part of this project. The various modules of CAARUS are
a) Staff management, b) Case Registration, c) Case progress and disposal, d) Station Data Bank and e)
Receipts.
CAARUS is also a stand-alone application with an additional feature of uploading the data to the
central server at SCRB at the end of the day. Along with CAARUS, CIPA was also implemented in 137
Police stations in the State as a part of the Central Government initiative. However the State
continued with CAARUS as the main Application software which was implemented in nearly 1100
Police stations and the data entry from all the locations was monitored on a regular basis.
Currently CAARUS is being customized for developing a comprehensive application platform over
three tier service oriented architecture considering all the reusable design features of CAARUS and
CIPA in line with CCTNS Core Application Software (CAS) guidelines. The application that is being
developed in Tamil Nadu as per State specific requirements under CCTNS project has been named as
Common Integrated Police Record Update System (CIPRUS).
The State plans to implement CIPRUS as a CAARUS upgrade in 2441 locations. The CIPRUS has been
designed to include the functionalities of CAARUS, CIPA and CAS in addition to other enhancements
like a) GIS based Crime Analysis suite, b) Knowledge base suite, c) Police intranet website, d)
Constable suite, e) Law and order suite, f) Communication suite and h) Traffic suite.
47
CCTNS –SI RFP-Tamilnadu: http://ncrb.gov.in/All%20State%20RFP/Tamilnadu/CCTNS%20TN%20RFP%20Vol%20I.pdf, [Retrieved 23-07-
2013]
3.8 Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS)
The Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) in general are software applications which
match one or many unknown fingerprints with a database of known and unknown fingerprints. AFIS
is primarily used by Police and law enforcement organizations for criminal identification for
identifying persons suspected of committing a crime or linking a suspect to unsolved crimes. AFIS is
used Fingerprint Bureaux across the world for crime and criminal investigation.
However it is interesting to note that the science of fingerprinting for identification of individuals on
the basis of uniqueness and permanence of the fingerprint patterns started in India in 1858. The first
ever fingerprint Bureau in the world was established in Kolkata in 1897. The Central Fingerprinting
Bureau was started at Kolkata in 1955 under the administrative control of Intelligence Bureau and in
1986 the CFPB was merged with NCRB and shifted to New Delhi48. In India District Fingerprint
Bureaux under the State Fingerprint Bureaux assist the Police Departments for Investigation
purposes with respect to identification of fingerprints. Most of the States in the country have
installed AFIS software from various companies49.
One of the popular software implemented at CFPB at NCRB and many of the States is FACTS
(Fingerprint Analysis and Criminal/Civilian Tracing System). The FACTS uses Image Processing and
Pattern Recognition technique to capture, encode, store and match fingerprints, including
comparison of chance prints. It uses pattern class, core and delta information, minutiae location,
direction, neighboring information, ridge counts and distances, density, type, print
background/foreground information etc. for matching Finger Prints. Apart from the above details,
FACTS also stores non-fingerprint information or demographic details like gender, region and
conviction details in its Criminal Attributes Databases for providing annotations to the matched
fingerprint results50.
Fingerprint matching algorithms vary greatly in terms of Type I (false positive) and Type II (false
negative) error rates. They also vary in terms of features such as image rotation invariance and
independence from a reference point (usually, the "core", or center of the fingerprint pattern). The
accuracy of the algorithm, print matching speed, robustness to poor image quality, and the
characteristics noted above are critical elements of system performance.
Fingerprint matching has an enormous computational burden. Some larger AFIS vendors deploy
custom hardware while others use software to attain matching speed and throughput. In general, it
is desirable to have, at the least, a two stage search. The first stage will generally make use of global
fingerprint characteristics while the second stage is the minutia matcher.
Currently NCRB is planning to create a national level integrated fingerprint database and create a
National AFIS platform which enables all the States to share Fingerprint data at national level.
Initiatives to include additional biometrics like palm prints, iris, facial recognition, etc. are also being
planned. However the use of Fingerprints for crime and criminal investigation is governed by Indian
Evidence Act and the Identification of Prisoners Act which allow only capture of fingerprints as
defined by the process of law. States are also planning to integrate AFIS with CCTNS software for
transfer of fingerprint information of arrested persons and generation of consolidated reports for
investigation purposes.
48
CFPB- http://ncrb.nic.in/cfpb.htm[Retrieved on19-07-2013]
49
EoI for NAFIS: http://ncrb.gov.in/CCTNS-
EOI/Draft%20Expression%20of%20Interest%20for%20NAFIS%20platform%20for%20CCTNS%20project%20_v4.0.pdf
[Retrieved on19-07-2013]
50
FACTS, http://www.cmcltd.com/industry_practices/e-Governance/facts.shtml [Retrieved on19-07-2013]
3.9 Talaash
Talaash Information System is an integrated system for linking Arrested, Wanted, Missing, Traced,
Kidnapped, Deserters, Escapee, Unidentified dead bodies and unidentified persons based on
attribute data available from various police agencies in the country. It was further planned to
improve the software to integrate attribute-based search with photograph based facial search51.
The software was developed by NCRB and provided to all the States/UTs in 2006 to aid in
investigation with respect to missing persons, etc. The software has been used across by all the
States/UTs for querying for missing persons. In certain cases missing persons were also linked to
unidentified dead bodies for identification and investigation purposes52.
With the initiation of CCTNS project in 2009-10, it was planned to subsume all the legacy application
developed by NCRB into the CCTNS software application. Accordingly the functionalities of Talaash
were built into CAS (Centre) in the form of Talaash service or missing persons service. The key
functional requirements of the services are presented below.
1. “This functionality will enable the user to search for missing persons across the national
database
2. The system should collate all the missing persons data from the data received from multiple
states
3. The system should enable the user to view and search the NCRB National Database on
missing persons. The user should be able to build the search query and save the search
query and results for future use
4. The system should enable the user to identify trends and generate basic reports on missing
persons.”
51
Talaash Software User manual-http://mahacid.com/TALASHMAN.pdf [Retrieved on 23-07-2013]
52
Talaash success story, http://ncrb.nic.in/NewsLetter/NewsLetterApr-Jun10.pdf [Retrieved on 23-07-2013]
3.10 Motor Vehicle Coordination System (MVCS)
Motor Vehicle Coordination System (MVCS) was one of the oldest softwares developed by NCRB,
which was further upgraded as a web version for searching a national level searchable database of
missing and stolen vehicles. The application provides for search functionalities for providing details
registered vehicles. NCRB provides motor vehicle as a verification service and has opened a counter
in 2001 for providing information on missing or stolen vehicles at a nominal fee of Rs 10/- . The
information on missing or stolen vehicles registered with Police stations is generally useful for the
following two purposes.
 Recovery status of a stolen/missing vehicle by Police

 To enable the potential buyer of a second hand vehicle to know whether the vehicle is not a
stolen one or involved in any crime.
The above facility can be availed by submission of query through MVCS website 53 or through post or
directly at the MVC counter. The application received by post from general public is processed only
when all details are furnished in the application form. In addition to the counter at NCRB, MVCS
counters were also established across various SCRBs at State level.
Like all other legacy software of NCRB, MVCS was also planned to get subsumed into CCTNS
software. Accordingly the functionalities of MVCS are being developed as Registered Vehicle and
Vehicle of Interest Service in the Core Application Software (CAS) (Centre) application of CCTNS. The
following are the key functional requirements of the CAS (Centre) with respect to the Registered
Vehicle and Vehicle of Interest Service54.
1. “This functionality will enable the user to search for registered vehicles and vehicles of
interest such as, missing / stolen vehicles, abandoned / unclaimed vehicles, and vehicles
involved in traffic incidents across the national database.
2. The system should capture the registered vehicle data from the external sources (ex,
Transport Department).
3. The system should capture the monthly / periodic updates of registered vehicle data from the
external sources (eg:Transport Department).
4. The system should collate all the relevant vehicles data from the data received from multiple
states.
5. The system should enable the user to view and search the NCRB National Database on
registered, missing / stolen, abandoned / unclaimed vehicles, and vehicles involved in traffic
incidents. The user should be able to build the search query and save the search query and
results for future use.
6. The system should enable the user to identify trends and generate basic reports on the
vehicles of interest.”
53
MVCS website-http://164.100.44.105:8080/(S(hq5qfn452uf2t545wbsk1w55))/MotorVehicleQuery.aspx
54
Annexure-I to Volume-I of RFP for selection of Software Development Agency of CCTNS project.
3.11 Portrait Building System (PBS)
The Portrait Building System (PBS) is software for developing of sketches and portraits of suspects
and other persons of interest, aids the investigation officers in solving cases. The PBS has a digitized
portraits directory module which has several sizes, shapes, textures, etc., of face components (Head,
Eye, Ears, Nose, Mouth, Chin, Cheeks, etc.) of different ethnicities which can be matched in various
permutations and combinations to generate and build portraits, based on the clues provided by
witnesses. The PBS has features to extract face components similar to the suspect as described by
witness, from the digitized portraits directory and assemble these components to construct face
image of the suspect or accused. By using PBS, NCRB has been assisting the Investigating Officers of
States/UTs Police, CBI and other police agencies by preparing the Portraits of the accused based on
the account given by the eyewitnesses.
 “Portrait Building System assists to assemble and edit face components.

 Using the data of 100 faces user can reconstruct more than1000,00,00 faces.
 It uses advance image processing techniques like enhance, stretch, morph, integrate and
rotate.
 Its supports blurring to remove sharp edges to create pencil sketch which is useful for
manual editing.
 A digital image is a matrix of Pixels which represent color or gray level. By changing the
relative values of Pixels the appearance of the image can be
changed.
 Horizontal mirroring is supported to create left half of the face from the right half.”
The following tools are also available with the application:

 “Change Shape
 Mirroring
 Crop resize and paste
 Text tool
 Light Brush tool
 Dark Brush tool
 Tilt Image tool and
 Rotate Image tool”
Portrait Building System (Black & White) has been implemented in all the State Crime Bureaux and
District Crime Records Bureaux. The upgrade of PBS, the Colour Portrait Building System (CPBS)
software with wider range of facial attributes and features is being piloted for release. The following
are some of the key cases solved using PBS55.
 “The Portrait Building System was effectively used to construct portrait of the accused in the
Rajiv Gandhi murder case.
 It was also used to prepare the portrait of suspect in Bahadurgarh Child abuse case in which
minor girls between 5-9 years were sexually abused and later on killed by the accused.
 A long pending kidnap case could be solved after seven years when the portrait was built
with help of his childhood photograph.
 Portrait building system was effectively used to construct the photographs of the accused in
bomb blast cases in Mumbai and Delhi.
 It has been successfully used in constructing the portrait of accused of Bus Bomb Blast Case
of Delhi as a result the accused has been apprehended from Srinagar.”
55
Portrait Building System- http://ncrb.nic.in/pbs.htm [ Retrieved on 19-07-2013]
The initiatives presented above provide a glimpse of the status of e-Governance in Police and law
enforcement sector in India. In addition to the above initiatives, several specialized solutions have
been implemented on a pilot basis and are being used successfully by important Departmental units
of large Cities like Mumbai Police, Bangalore Police and Delhi Police. Notable among them Crime
Analytics platforms by Mumbai and Bangalore Police, GIS based maps by AP police, Mobile Data
terminal pilots, Automated Vehicle Locating Systems, etc. However all the advanced solutions are
being used on a limited basis or being tested as a pilot. The Government of India is also planning
implementation of specialized solutions and infrastructure like GIS based Crime Analytics, Command
and control room solutions, National level Fingerprint database systems, Mobile Data Terminals,
Fingerprint Enrolment devices, etc. during the XII plan period.
The timelines for various e-Governance initiatives in Police and Law enforcement sector in India
have been illustrated below as a reference. The milestones presented are not exhaustive and may
include other such milestones which may be of equal significance.
Figure 14: Timelines: E-Governance in Police and law enforcement in India
4 Best Practices in e-Governance for Police and Law enforcement
A Best Practice is a method or a technique which has consistently delivered superior results
compared to other alternative methods or means or techniques to achieve an outcome or an
objective. Best practices are generally referred to business processes which have been reported and
published over a period of time by organizations and individuals.
Best practices communicated and shared are taken note of by peers or other organizations in similar
business and are validated for the claim and measure of process improvement identified. They are
generally agreed upon as a good, better or a best practice over other similar practices. The Best
practices over a period of time mature into industry best practices and are picked up by Standards
bodies and organizations to be positioned as industry benchmarks or Standards. The standardization
of practices involved both qualitative and quantitative performance outcomes against various
indicators and parameters.
It is also to be noted that certain identified good or best practices which are mostly context specific
and stand directly on assumptions specific to a particular situation, might not work in similar
situations in different contexts due to several externalities and unique internal factors. However
most of the best practices are process centric and involve improvement over a process step or better
handling of a process dependency and therefore applicable under similar contexts.
In Government context, the legislations and reforms directly set the agenda for Government process
improvement and in the effort to achieve outcomes and objectives; the need to identify and
standardize certain process steps and challenges arises on a regular basis. In such scenarios, best
practices from similar contexts provide a guidance to move forward.
With respect to e-Governance, several success stories, good practices and case studies are reported
and published to document various resolutions or solutions positioned to address key challenges,
bottlenecks, process improvement opportunities, pain points or simply problems to be solved to
make progress. The best practices reported in the public domain are generally accepted as practices
which achieve superior results. Some of the practices are issued by the Government as guidelines or
guidance notes to the States to further customize and improvise before adoption. Certain
technology and process best practices which are generally accepted industry-wide practices
published and peer-reviewed and are supported by research and technology development results
are further tested and subjected to rigorous certification processes to become Standards and
benchmarks.
ICT adoption in Police and Law enforcement has gained its momentum much later compared to
other Departments due the nature of functions of Police organizations. Although police
computerization started 2-3 decades back, the actual realization of benefits of ICTs on a larger scale
is still in its inception. Various Police reforms and policy directives for improving the effectiveness
and efficiencies of Police functioning have elaborated on various measures including ICT
interventions. However the holistic coordination across processes remains a challenge due to several
organizational factors and externalities related to the very functioning of Police.
Since ICT adoption and e-Governance directly affect the information and reporting processes of
Policing, which by their very nature have evolved in a closed framework, the best practices to
overcome them are directly linked to the underlying process changes in rules, legislations and laws.
The Government through the recommendations of National Police Commission and other reforms
committees and initiatives has set the direction and context for the Police to move forward in line
with the needs of the society. The best practices considered in this report are therefore considered
in the above mentioned larger context. The principles of Ethical policing or Peelian Principles for
Ethical Police force which form the guiding path for design of policies and reforms for Police
functioning may be considered for judging and identifying the best practices.
(i) The basic mission for whom the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
(ii) The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police
actions.
(iii) Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law
to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
(iv) The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to
the necessity of the use of physical force.
(v) Police seek and preserve public favor not by catering to public opinion but by constantly
demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
(vi) Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to
restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be
insufficient.
(vii) Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the
historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being
only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are
incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
(viii) Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to
usurp the powers of the judiciary.
(ix) The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of
police action in dealing with it.
In Indian context organizations like BPR&D (Bureau of Police Research and Development), NCRB or
other State Government bodies regularly publish and share good practices or best practices or
success stories. However it is to be noted that these practices are not certified (or sometimes
validated) by research or testing of performance metrics specific to Police functions unlike other
countries where Standards bodies like National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), Law
Enforcement Information Technology Standards Committee,(LEITSC), NPIA ( National Police
Improvement Agency) ,etc. conduct assessments and confirm best practices.
Even in developed countries, e-Governance in Police and Law enforcement is evolving and extensive
work for development of standards and guidelines is in progress especially to address issues of
information security, Right to privacy, Interoperability standards, Business process improvement ,
multi-agency coordination, Business Intelligence and analytics, engaging communities, cyber-crime,
Surveillance, Social media, etc.
The best practices presented in the subsequent sections are therefore based on i) success and
consistent results delivered through use of a certain practice which was positioned as the best
alternative among others, ii) Technology adoption which has largely delivered results and is largely
perceived to be beneficial for improvement of Police functioning and iii) Practice identified as a part
of reform process to be implemented as a best practice or a standard.
It is also to be noted that rapid change in technology adoption is happening around the world with
advent of mobile and handheld devices and penetration of 3G and 4G networks. The internet
penetration is bound to increase exponentially in the coming decade and technology is going to
percolate into the grassroots to include and enable every individual into Governance and economy.
Policing has to therefore keep pace with the larger change that is happening around the world
driven through technology and process improvement.
The direction has been set in India with the advent of CCTNS which provides a foundation for e-
Governance in the coming years. The CCTNS project itself has been planned and designed after
assessment of best practices and suitable technology frameworks which will orient the Police
organizations to move in the right direction. Some of the key concepts which form the underlying
basis for best practices in e-Governance are i) Service oriented architecture which enables flexibility,
scalability and reliability, ii) Information security standards based on rights of privacy and basic rights
of freedom, iii) Interoperability across various systems to co-exist and share information across
multiple technology platforms, iv) continuous improvement , v) change management and vi)
Innovative use technology both at an incremental and disruptive level.
5 Best Practices-National
5.1 Centralized Dial 100 systems
A Dial-100 system of some kind exists in most cities/districts/states of the country. However, as of
now, there is no appropriate or standardized police response mechanism to take care of different
types of incidents/emergencies. There is also no measurement mechanism of the quality of service
rendered and no way in which the response can be compared with the best practices obtaining
elsewhere.
“Wherever Police control rooms are available, the dispatch of PCR vans to the incident spots and
their responses to the site situation is at best left to the individual initiative and is therefore
necessarily ad-hoc. If the general public were to be asked, the expected reply would be that it was
inadequate and mostly unsatisfactory. There is thus an immediate need to upgrade and improve the
police response, make it more accountable so that the people are totally satisfied with the service
delivery of police.56
Unless immediate action is taken to ensure a common integrated response management system
which ensures anytime, anywhere policing, the police as a service provider cannot rise up to the
people’s expectations. In future, the 24 x 7 control rooms set up under this project will actually
become the single window system for addressing adequately all calls for police help and all policing
responses including FIR registration and will be closely monitored from the Centralized control room
and ensured that they meet the expected standards of quality and are fully auditable. “
The State of Andhra Pradesh launched the Project Dial 100 in coordination with GVKEMRI as a State-
wide initiative with a proposed response time of 40 seconds. The project which was started in April
2013 as a pilot provides for a state-wide integrated Dial 100 centre which will cohesively coordinate
with other emergency services such as medical, fire and other disaster response services. The system
will have GPS/GIS server integrated with a digital map of the entire state so that the location of the
caller can be identified at the centralized call center and the locations and movements of patrol
vehicles can be monitored centrally57.
Although several complaints of non-adherence to SLAs, like call drop-offs, delays in connecting to
Dial 100, delayed emergency response or priority shown by the staff to the influenced and the well-
connected, high-handed behavior of Police/staff, etc., have been regularly reported, the Centralized
Dial 100 aims to address the inefficiencies of the existing system and provides for requisite
infrastructure and monitoring capabilities58.
A senior officer with enough powers for coordination across the agencies is an essential requirement
for smooth functioning of the Centralized Dial 100 system. Further the outsourcing of responsibilities
of call taking and dispatch to the specialist agency under SLA is in itself is a best practice principle of
business risk management where in the right people get to do the right things so that the focus is on
meeting the process and the outcomes and not individuals. Various States in the country are now
planning to implement the Centralized Dial 100 as a best practice methodology to address the
challenges of resource and asset scheduling and inefficiencies in responding to emergencies. The
integrated Dial 100 is an approach to integrate similar services and coordinate across responsible
units to attend to the call through the requisite specialized agency. The following is the process
56
Project proposal for Micro mission-4, Dial 100-BPR&D: http://bprd.nic.in/writereaddata/linkimages/0800237872-
Incident%20Command%20Centre.pdf [Retrieved on 23-07-2014]
57
Project Dial 100: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-04-13/hyderabad/38510494_1_dial-100-hoax-calls-police-
station[Retrieved on 23-07-2014]
58
Press note: http://www.gvk.com/files/announcementtickerpdf/Project_Dial_100.pdf, [Retrieved on 23-07-2014]
followed by Project Dial 100 as per the press note released by the State Government of Andhra
Pradesh59.
 “The citizen would get a hassle free access to Police help through mobile/landline by calling
100 from any service provider and anywhere in the state to file the complaint.
 All the Dial-100 calls received from the entire state will be routed through the Primary Rate
Interface (PRI) lines of BSNL and/or other appropriate telecom service provider to the
centralized Dial-100 Call Centre EPABX/Server with Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)
 Then it would be transferred to the call taker at Centralized Dial-100 call centre through
Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) with Caller Line Identification (CLI) and Interactive
Voice Record System (IVRS) facilities
 The number 100 will also be integrated by strong interfacing with other existing numbers like
108 and 101 for effective coordination, command and control during disasters and mass
casualty incidents
 The system will be integrated with GPS / GIS server with digital map of entire state so that
the location of the caller can be identified at the centralized call centre and also the locations
and movements of the patrolling vehicles/Specialized vehicles can be monitored centrally if
desired at a later stage.”
The following are the key components of typical Centralized Dial 100 system.
 “ Call Center: The initial telephone calls for assistance from the public will be received at the call
center fully equipped with Integrated Communication Control System and forwarded to
appropriate control room (Police, Fire, Medical emergency) operator via a touch-screen user
interface and headset. The toll free number 100 will be the single point of contact for all police
help seekers irrespective of telecom service providers. Integration of other means of reporting like
SMS, MMS, Email, Walk-in, Snail mail, Sat Phone, Wireless, Fax,etc to the Call Center has to be
achieved. All calls for help and assistance from police will also get routed through the Call Center.
 Integrated Control Room (Police/Fire/Medical Emergency): An integrated command center that

will enable call takers, dispatchers and other staff working in the control room environment to be
able to efficiently access all communication and information resources required to effectively
manage operational incidents. Seamless interaction among various Control Rooms of various
departments (Fire, Medical Emergency, Water Supply, Corporation,etc) and that designated
Control Room to take the lead position depending on the type of emergency. For ex: in case of
ChikunGunya the Medical Emergency Control Room will take the lead.
 Response Management System: GPS enabled Police Patrol Vehicles, Riot control vehicles, Dog
squad, ATS units; mobile Forensic units will be dispatched to incident locations based on real time
vehicle tracking and type of response required for the incident reported. These response vehicles
will have seamless communication with the Control Room.
 Data Center and Data Analysis: All type of information and databases (CCTNS,AFIS, etc.) to be
maintained so that the patrol officers will be able to access data related to an incident. It will be a
central repository of all information. The Data analysis unit will also perform Cyber Patrolling and
monitor secure / protected networks
 Incident Monitoring System: A Display system that will enable projection of all type of video feeds
from public surveillance cameras, patrol vehicles and media for real time monitoring of the
situation. The handling of the situations on site will be monitored and controlled.”
59
Ibid
The creation of requisite infrastructure at the State level and effective coordination between
various other agencies at State/district/local level (Fire, Medical, Disaster management, District
management, Excise, Transport, etc.) is a critical success factor for enabling smooth function of a
Centralized Dial 100. Further the efficient placement/deployment of ICT systems in terms of
integrating various ICT systems of different Departments, registering the calls and action
data/information, GPS/GIS based monitoring of vehicles/units/responses, SLA monitoring
systems, asset maintenance and tracking, etc. should be the basic consideration for design of
Centralized Dial 100.
5.2 Mobile Handheld/Blackberry based Traffic enforcement systems

The need for immediate resolution for enforcement of traffic violations was a need which has been
identified for a long time, keeping in view the ever increasing urbanization and vehicle population.
The default process of issue of manual challan /fine by the Traffic police for violation and payment of
the fine after Court order and payment to Government office through a Treasury office is indeed a
long drawn out process, which needed simplification especially in large urban centres with traffic
woes.
With a vehicle population of nearly 40 lacs, Bangalore is next to Delhi60 in terms of vehicle density as
per 2011-12 data. With an annual growth of 7%-10% traffic, most of the roads have been operating
above their capacities and traffic management and enforcement is a serious challenge. Adding to the
above challenges, the insufficient road infrastructure, scarcity of parking spaces and limited number
of traffic police/enforcement staff have compounded to the traffic problems in urban areas like
Bangalore. Further high traffic volumes on congested roads lead to travel speeds less than 15kmph
causing high fuel inefficiencies, wastage and pollution.
The Bangalore Traffic Police implemented Blackberry based traffic enforcement initiative in 2009-10,
which has received wide publicity and has been considered as a best practice in e-Governance. A
Traffic management control room, a website (bangaloretrafficpolice.gov.in) and an SMS service JOIN
BTP at 5657678 to get real-time traffic updates have been
created as best practice methods. The innovative
enforcement systems enabled through successful e-
Governance in Bangalore have not only reduced the traffic
violations and accidents, but also significantly increased the
collection of MV Act fines, thus contributing to the revenue to
the Department.
Blackberry application enables traffic field personnel to have

mobile access to the vehicle database, through a mobile
handheld connected to Bluetooth enabled printers. These
devices are connected to a central server kept at state data Figure 15: Blackberry device and
center. More than 650 Blackberry wielding officers enforce Thermal printer
traffic rules and regulations and fine offenders61.
All these activities are done online resulting in real time monitoring and statistical analysis for the
senior officer’s review. Online booking of violations using Blackberry also ensures tracking of
habitual traffic offenders thus ensuring enhanced punishment for them. In addition it also tracks
down unpaid violation notices issued in past.
60
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/Affluent-Delhi-loves-to-splurge-on-cars-
property/Article1-1029096.aspx
61
http://www.bangaloretrafficpolice.gov.in/pressroom/pdf/16.pdf
The Blackberry solution has the following components
 Blackberry handheld device

 Application interface in Blackberry device
 Thermal printer which connects with Blackberry by Bluetooth ®
The Traffic personnel use the Blackberry device for the following purposes.
 Case history
 New case entry
 Police notice checking
 Reporting
 Synchronization
Given below is the Blackberry deployment architecture.
The
Figure 16: Blackberry deployment architecture
following are the screenshots of Blackberry application interfaces provided as a reference62.
62
Training material on Blackberry based Traffic management system, Karnataka State Police,PCW,SCRB, Bangalore
Figure 17: Screenshot of Blackberry application interfaces Figure 18: Screenshot of Blackberry application interfaces
Although Blackberry experiment is a best practice, there have been several reports of misuse of the
devices by a few corrupt traffic police personnel for wrong issue of fines to non-traffic violations
with respect to pending cases. This has also led to social media campaigns by the public against the
practice.
In addition to Blackberry solution, the Traffic Department have also acquired new technologies such
as Enforcement vehicles with interceptors/Alcometers/Speed guns/Mobile Data terminals,
Automated signals, Video surveillance at key locations, IVRS and traffic helpline, Parking information
systems, etc 63. Currently steps are being planned to address the challenges of the Blackberry system
and also to consolidate and integrate various systems as a part of Command and control center for
Integrated Intelligent Traffic and Transport systems based upon video surveillance and automated
number plate recognition.
5.3 E-Beat/Handhelds for Beats/patrols
E-Beat is a beat management system for police personnel designed to move the beat registration to
a RFID based automatic logging system to ensure the presence of the police men on duty and
discourage the fudging of the physical records (point book).
The Karnataka State Police department implemented the e-Beat system to ensure accountability and
efficiency of beat management. The e-Beat system was introduced in 2004, however was scaled up
for all the beat locations in the State in the subsequent years. The e-Beat system replaces the Point
Book kept at the beat locations/areas with a RFID tag (Radio Frequency Identification) tag which
contains a microchip with a unique identifier.
The system is based on Radio Frequency ID system, popularly known as RFID Reader working at 125
KHz. A passive Tag with a unique number embedded in it, acts as a transponder. This Tag gets
activated when a Reader is flashed near it, at proximity of maximum 10cms. Then the tag transmits
that unique no. to the Reader and Reader in turn reads it and stores it along with time stamping.
The RFID chip contains information on the beat schedule and other unique beat Identifiers details.
The Beat constable carries a RFID Beat reader to read the unique identifiers (date and time of visit
and identity of the official) from the RFID tags kept at all the assigned beat locations. The beat
63
Presentation by Shri.Praveen Sood, ADGP,Karnataka Police and Nodal officer, CCTNS project,
http://www.intranse.in/its1/sites/default/files/D1-S2-01_Traffic_Management_using_technology-BTP_0.pdf
constables return the RFID readers to the Police station and the contents of the RFID reader
information are downloaded at Police station level. The system has been designed to ensure that
beat constable regularly visits the beats and stays regularly on beat locations to act as a deterrent to
unlawful activities in the beat area. The Station House Officer (SHO) monitors the information
collected from eBeat readers for better resource scheduling, crime prevention and human resource
management. The RFID identifiers and schedules are updated and maintained on a regular basis.
e- Beat system has a distributed architecture. The data is saved locally at each unit and there is
absolutely no sharing of data between the units. So it becomes difficult to track the beat activities by
higher officers. Steps are being initiated to further strengthen the System for centralized monitoring
to make beat management more effective64.
The following are the key functional requirements of e-Beat implemented in Karnataka.
 “A master form to capture the details about the personnel working in a particular unit
 A master form to capture the details of the Reader
 A master form to capture the details of the Tags
 A master form to capture the images of the different beat maps
 A form to capture and update the tag details which are not fixed in any point.
 A form to insert the details of the beat points by the user. This form gives a map view to do
the entry more easily
 A form to plan the route for a particular beat
 A form to set up the port for each reader
 A form to plan the beat duty assignment
 A form to test the reader information related to assign the reader and to whom it assigned
 A form to assign a reader to a particular person
 A form to download the beat read details from the RFID Beat Reader”.
While the e-Beat system of Karnataka is implemented as a best practice for monitoring the beats at
a local level, there are still several steps to be taken to integrate the e-Beat systems with the Records
Management Systems (like CCTNS, Police-IT). However the best practice is to regularly monitor the
beat attendance for enabling crime prevention through deterrence at beat level.
The Madhya Pradesh Police have taken a step forward in this direction by developing an application
deployed on smart phones for beat and patrol management. The initiative is under pilot and
processs to integrate the handheld devices with CCTNS software for seamless data updation is in
progress. Given below are the screenshots of the Handheld devices being piloted in Madhya
Pradesh, which provide for multiple reporting input forms for Police personnel at the field level. The
Application is also being built over web based architecture for State level monitoring of crime
prevention, law and order activities and would be a highly beneficial device to the Police personnel
in the field. The device has a highly user-friendly touch screen based user interface which enables
easy input of parameterized data65.
64
Karnataka State Police, System Integrator, RFP document
65
MP Police, User manual for PDAs, SCRB,Madhya Pradesh
Figure 19: User Interface of handheld device Figure 20: Key functionalities of Hand held
used in Madhya Pradesh application user in Madhya Pradesh
The above examples of handhelds for e-Beat and patrols are best practice examples in e-Governance
for Police and law enforcement based on certain pioneering initiatives. However the actual
execution of field based reporting enabled through Handheld devices in terms of monitoring for
accountability at SHO,SDPO,SP and State level is a critical success factor for success of these
initiatives. The incorporation of technology standards and success stories of Automated Field
Reporting Systems in USA and elsewhere may help in further addressing the challenges in
implementation of this best practice 6667.
5.4 Integrated Investigation Toolkit Applications
The design of applications for investigating officers with user-friendly interface would not only
develop a sense of ownership and acceptability of the Application, but also improve efficiency in
crime and criminal investigation. Integrated investigation toolkits are user interfaces which bring
together multiple functionalities into a single user interface for enabling the user (Investigation
officer) to contextualize a case in multiple scenarios. The integrated interface with user friendly
navigation provides for tables and icons with drag and drop functionalities to mix and match various
parameters and information components to generate leads, inferences and summaries and also to
build case scenarios. Such information may include Fingerprint information, Forensic lab information
Photo matching, links to search and reports functions of transport, residents, economic offences
databases, etc. The key functionalities to be part of such integrated interfaces include Crime
Analytics, GIS maps, Records Management system, Knowledge repository, Legal library, Search and
reporting functionalities from various databases, etc.
The best practice case of HOLMES 2 investigation suite application of UK, which provides for similar
functionalities, is presented further as a part of international best practices. In an Indian context
66
AFRS, http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/Publications/e08084156-IT.pdf
67
AFRS, http://www.ijis.org/docs/LE_RMS_FuncSpecs_v2.pdf
such a system combining multiple functions and drag and drop functionalities for crime
analytics/business intelligence functions, etc. does not exist. However the CCTNS application
provides for an Investigation officer dashboard (IO) under the Investigation Management Service
which can form a base to develop integrated user interfaces in combination with other functions.
The Criminal Intelligence System (CIS) of eCOPS is another application which is built on best practice
principles as an investigation tool to assist police investigators in identifying and short-listing details
of most probable offenders with their personal particulars, photographs, associates, and pending
NBWs etc. The application facilitates victims/witnesses who can be shown photographs of suspects
at the crime scene itself for identification at the earliest. The System also helps investigators to
match untraced missing persons with unidentified dead bodies on one hand and lost/stolen
vehicles& traced/recovered vehicles on the other. The Criminal Intelligence System (CIS) thus
empowers and enables Investigating Police Officers to access and search the criminal data base of
the entire state and obtain results instantaneously. The key functionalities of CIS are given below.
“Classification of offenders, Personal details, Physical features, Photographs, Finger prints, Family
history, Socio economic profile, Regular places of visit, Crime classification, Arrest details, Dressing
patterns, Activities before and after offence, Local contacts, Conveyance details, Share of amount
spent, Property disposal, Receivers, Sureties, Defense council, Other cases confessed, Convictions,
Acquittals, NBW’s, Missing person/dead bodies’ details, Search, Photographs, Articles, Identification
marks, Automated system matching between missing & unidentified dead bodies, Lost vehicle
details, Recovered vehicle details, Crime involved vehicle details, automated match between lost and
recovered vehicles, Automated match between lost and recovered mobiles, Jail stay & acquaintance,
Jail Mulakats, Jail releases, Non-Bailable warrants & execution68. The above examples form the basis
for design and implementation of integrated user interfaces similar to the user interfaces of
HOLMES2 and Fusion centres for solving complex cases and fast-tracking investigation processes69”.
5.5 Use of webinars for training and leadership communications
The Madhya Pradesh police Department have adopted webinar based approach for conducting
regular training to the nominated staff on various aspects of e-Governance. The Department is
currently implementing the CCTNS project and regularly uses the webinar feature of its Enterprise
edition of Departmental email facility to communicate regularly with all the District offices and
Police stations. The webinar is also used by regularly by the State Nodal officer of CCTNS project to
communicate guidelines to all the District Nodal officers and other concerned staff.
The Department has so far conducted sessions for Basic IT awareness training, Communication of
data digitization validation guidelines, guidelines for site preparation, etc. The use of webinar facility
by the very top leadership at the State Police Headquarters drives a strong change management
agenda and sets the tone at the top for adopting e-Governance in the Department. All the Police
personnel in the State have been provided with unique email ids and webinar invite from the
headquarters can be sent to the concerned staff based on requirement. The regular participation of
District Nodal officer (SP of the district) in webinars also creates a sense of ownership. The following
are the advantages of webinar based communication as a tool for enabling capacity building and
change management for e-Governance in the organization.
 Providing efficient, reliable multicast services delivery with minimal complexity.
68
Criminal Intelligence System-http://ncrb.nic.in/All%20State%20RFP/Andhra%20Pradesh/AP_CCTNS_RFP_Vol-
I_(27.05.11).pdf, [Retrieved on 21-07-2013]
69
Ibid
 Easy co-ordination with the present audience.
 More queries solved and get immediate response from
the attendees.
 Easily distribute copies of the presentation, reference
information, or other collateral, have those files ready
before your event, along with an e-mail draft.
 Monitor initial objectives for webinar and implement
measurements to track the success of webinar.
 Record all meeting sessions-including all phone and micro-
phone audio
 Attendees can join easily by just clicking a link, or entering Figure 21: Webinar console
their meeting ID
 Can share the whole screen and keyboard/Mouse controls to cooperatively edit files on
Screen
 Securely share design, documents and project plans online,
 Use of Drawing tools to highlight main ideas on screen
 Reduce Costs of travel and logistics and reach a larger audience at a lower cost,
 Update remote attendees without travelling
 Host training sessions more frequently
 Manages automatic inactivity time-outs.
 With the use of Webinar dashboard one can "see" the audience, including who's got their
hand raised, how many are paying attention and what your presentation looks like on their
screen. The webinar can also be used to launch polls and surveys to involve audience and
use the Q & A pane to monitor and respond to questions.
 Further features like Dashboard view, Audience view (thumbnail of presentation) ,Q & A,
Polls
 Raise hands of Attendees feature, etc. also help to conduct interactive sessions.
Figure 22: Invite to webinar
Challenges:
 During the Webinar session, audience can lose some of the interaction and the presenter
has to continuously focus on attendees’ activity to make your session interactive.
 For Presenter it is very important to make a speech interesting as there is no visibility of face
during the sessions in low bandwidth conditions.
 In a webinar it is difficult for listeners to make a note of the presentation and little harder to
focus, especially if there are other distractions around.
 It is difficult for the presenter to answer various questions of participants concurrently and
meticulous planning and coordination is required for successful webinars.
 There is no control over the audience in the present webinar technology, unlike an
instructor led training classroom.
 Electricity and bandwidth are regular challenge at Police Stations/Police offices/field level70.
Figure 23: Webinar Joining
70
CCTNS project webinars- Madhya Pradesh Police
5.6 Rearrangement to Centralize Functions at District level/ Commissionerate level
Core functions such as petitions/complaints management, investigation of cases, and designing

crime prevention interventions are often neglected when with the limited human resources
available the police are entrusted with several other functions. Accountability is also greatly diluted
when duties cannot be clearly and unambiguously stated and performance cannot be measured and
monitored. In order to improve the efficiency of the resources within the police station, there is a
need to centralize/pool some of the activities currently handled at the police station. Centralizing
the non-core activities can result in more focus on the core activities of the police station. The
following are process best practice recommendations made by NCRB to the States for consideration
for further streamlining of processes for successful realization of e-Governance outcomes under
CCTNS project. Further these process recommendations have been provided as guidelines to States
for providing feedback on design and development of Core Application Software (CAS) of CCTNS
project. Key guidelines on the rearrangements to centralized functions have been reproduced below
along with the illustration as per NCRB report.
 “Office communications: In the current scenario, at least one or two constables are
assigned to the Tappal duty to personally deliver letters/information to either the internal
entities like CP/DCP/ACP’s office or external entities like MRO/FSL/RTO.
a) While email or an internal messaging system can be used to transmit information

within the department in the future, the delivery to an external system may still need
to be continued manually in several cases.
b) To release precious, limited, trained policemen from non-core to core duties, there is
a need for the police stations to pool the resources and create an internal courier
service that can be requested for pickup and delivery of letters to the recipients.
c) The pooling can happen either at the sub-divisional level or divisional level based on
the frequency and quantum of the letters to deliver and/or receive. The scope for
outsourcing these activities needs to be actively considered for undertaking tappal
work.
Figure 24: Functional Rearrangement of Non-core functions
 Reports from external agencies: The police are highly dependent on external agencies like
hospitals for medical certificates, RTO for information related to vehicles, cell phone
companies for cell phone records etc., for completion of their investigation duties.
a) Police resources, usually police constables are assigned the task of interacting with
these agencies to collect information and/or certificates to support the investigation
process.
b) However, it has been observed that the effort for collection of information from
these agencies is a time-consuming affair and takes away valuable police from the
more productive front line duties.
c) It is therefore recommended that a central cell can be made responsible to
collect/deliver information where a constant interaction with the external entity is a
necessity.
d) Instead of constables from several police stations going around the hospitals, once
the request for a medical certificate (MC) or post mortem examination report (PME)
is logged with the external agency from various police stations, the liaison officer
dealing with the corresponding hospital should handle the requests on a first-in-first-
out (FIFO) or a prioritized manner and send the information back to the respective
police stations.
e) The resource pooling can also help in better tracking of the pending requests and the
average time of response from the external entities. The cell can also coordinate with
other agencies that the police need information from, for example, RTO and cell
phone companies71.
 Prosecution duties: Once the investigation officer completes the investigation of a case
and files the charge sheet, the case goes into the court for trial. In most of the instances,
the case comes up for trial after a long delay and gets adjourned several times even after
the trial starts.
a) Every police station has at least two constables dedicated to the court work where
they take the case diaries for the cases that are up for the trial that day, follow the
case on whether the witnesses/accused have turned up, and note down the next
date of hearing.
b) The Commissionerate of Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh has created a centralized cell
that is made responsible for all the court related work from the various police
stations in the Commissionerate.
c) The cell has also facilitated in abolishing the monopoly of court duty police
personnel. Due to the centralized cell, the Commissionerate was able to augment the
rate of service of summons, execution of warrants and production of witnesses in the
courts has been high resulting in speedy disposal of pending trial cases and
increasing the rate of conviction.
d) The cell has also helped the Commissionerate to monitor the remand period of
remand prisoners and remind concerned SHOs for filing charge sheets or getting a
remand extension well before the due date.
e) Pooling of resources for the court work across the police stations within the
division/subdivision can help in a more efficient resource allocation.
f) This requires a formation of a court-cell aligned with the courts rather than the
police stations. The officers/constables within the court-cell will be assigned to
71
Draft Guidelines for BPR guidelines for CCTNS project,
http://police.pondicherry.gov.in/cctns%20with%20link%20adds/CCTNS%20folder%20for%20uploding%2016042010/CCTNS%20BPR%20Dr
aft%20v0_1_.1.pdf [Retrieved 23-07-2013]
separate courts and will be made responsible for trial matters and witness briefing of
the all the cases under trial within the assigned court.
 Evidence management:
a) Physical evidence goes from police station to court and back several times. The
evidence is checked out, sent to the lab, sent to court, inspected, disposed of or
released.
b) All of this traffic requires a dedicated unit that is capable of maintaining control on
the evidence, as well as enforcing the rules and regulations for handling the
evidence.
c) Currently the physical evidence in a case is either deposited at the court or kept at
the police station on the orders of the court where there are space constraints at the
court. Since the case comes up for a trial after a considerable duration, there is a
strong need to effectively store, manage and track the evidence so as to be able to
produce it during the trial.
d) This requires a central evidence/property cell with an evidence management system
to handle all the physical evidence at either the divisional or sub-divisional level
aligned with the courts.
e) The use of RFID tags/bar codes for management of Malkhana, where the properties
seized for investigation purposes are kept is another best practice which will go a
long way in streamlining the investigation management process. Further automation
of Malkhana functions and online update and maintenance of Malkhana register
(Seized property register) has also been recommended as a best practice guideline
for customization of CAS of CCTNS project.
 Executing of Non-local warrants/Summons: When a warrant has to be executed in a

town/city that is outside the jurisdiction of the police station, a constable from the local
police station is sent with a duty passport to execute the summon/warrant resulting in an
inefficient process.
a) The process can be redesigned to give the execution powers/responsibility to the

police station where the summon/warrant has to be served and have the resource
from the source police station travel to the town/city only when required, i.e., to get
the suspect/offender back.
b) Currently, the resource from the source police station loses a day or two just in travel
and if the suspect/offender is not found, the entire effort is wasted. In the new
process the police station where the summon/warrant has to be served should be
given the responsibility, even if the suspect is not found immediately, the person can
get on the police station’s watch list and eventually be captured and sent to the
originating police station72”.
72
Draft Guidelines on Business Process redesign, Version 0.1, MHA, Government of India [Retrieved on 23-01-2013] from
NCRB website.
5.7 Citizen portals
The citizen portal of CCTNS application provides for online complaint registration and incident
reporting to Police73. In addition to incident/crime reporting and online complaint registration,
CCTNS portal also provides for the following General Service requests.
 Complaints/ information to the concerned Police Station
 Status of the complaint or case registered at Police Station
 Copies of FIRs, post-mortem reports and other permissible documents etc.
 Details of arrested persons/ wanted criminals and their illegal activities etc.
 Details of missing/ kidnapped persons and their matching with arrested, unidentified
persons and dead bodies
 Details of stolen/ recovered vehicles, arms and other properties.
 Submission of requests for issue/ renewal of various NOCs, clearances and permits and
status of requests online.
 Verification requests for servants, employment, passport, marriages, senior citizen
registrations, etc.
 Portal for sharing information and enable citizens to download required forms/ certificates
etc.
Currently all the States are conducting a pilot of citizen portal under the CCTNS project. Notable
among them are Delhi Police74, Himachal Police75 and Tamil Nadu Police. Prior to the CCTNS
initiatives some of the States have attempted to provide for online crime and incident reporting
initiatives and General service requests like antecedent verification, tenant verification , enrolment
for Senior citizens, etc. Some of the best practices followed by various Police Departments with
respect to Police websites/portal are as follows.
1. The Tamil Nadu Police website clearly provides guidelines for registering online crime and
incident reporting similar to the guidelines mentioned as part of international best practices
that the online complaint registration through email is only for non-emergency cases.76
2. Delhi Police provides for online complaint registration as a part of Parivartan initiative, a
campaign for safety of women in Delhi.77 The campaign has been selected among the 10
international best practices by UNDP and also has been provided with ISO certification. The
Parivartan initiative specifically provides online complaint registration facility through
website for especially cases related to crime and violence against women.
3. The Mumbai Police website provides information on the best investigation detection or
crime solved during the month.78 The details of the case solved are displayed which
sensitizes the Public to the Police functioning and the investigation process and builds trust
and confidence.
4. The ‘ Find your Police Station” feature of Hyderabad Police website is a best practice in
terms of the search functionality for identifying the Police station jurisdiction. 79The website
also provides for the photo, name and details of SHO (Station House Officer) on the website
as a pop-up pinned to the Police station location on the map.
5. The Know your case status is provided by Cyberabad Police along with other services 80. The
case status, application for FIRs, issue of copies of FIRs, Lost mobile phone registry, Know
73
Tamilnadu Police website, http://www.tnpolice.gov.in/mailcomplaint.php [Retrieved on 23-01-2013]
74
Delhi Police, http://www.delhipolice.nic.in/parivartan/submitonline.htm[Retrieved on 23-01-2013]
75
Himachal Police, http://admis.hp.nic.in/himpol/Citizen/OnlineComplaints.aspx[Retrieved on 23-01-2013]
76
Mumbai Police, http://mumbaipolice.maharashtra.gov.in/elderline.asp[Retrieved on 23-01-2013]
77
Mumbai Police, http://mumbaipolice.maharashtra.gov.in/bestdetection.asp[Retrieved on 23-01-2013]
78
Hyderabad Police, http://www.hyderabadpolice.gov.in/Index-Files/MapAllStations.htm [Retrieved on 23-01-2013]
79
Hyderabad Police,http://www.hyderabadpolice.gov.in/Redirect-StolenMobile.htm[Retrieved on 23-01-2013]
80
Cyberabad Police, http://cyberabadpolice.gov.in/knowyourcasestatus.html [Retrieved on 23-01-2013]
your stolen vehicle status, etc. are some of the features that the citizen/resident can directly
search and obtain from the website Some of the features are also available both in
Hyderabad, Bangalore and Delhi Police websites.
6. The Delhi Police website provides for a link for registration of young adults for counseling of
experts through the NavChetna initiative as a measure of crime prevention in the city 81.
Volunteers, Doctors, Psychiatrists and Police are part of the initiative and the website
provides for online registration for scheduling counseling sessions for young adults,
adolescents and teenagers for solving the psychological problems of the modern age.
7. The Mumbai Police provides for information of its Senior Citizen’s care initiative called as
Elder line. The initiative is the outcome of an effort between volunteers, Police and Doctors
and a helpline. The website provides for daily and weekly monitoring report of emergency
help provided to elders through coordination of Police and emergency services.82
8. Through a significant Business process reengineering effort, the Bangalore Police is aiming to
reduce the Passport verification process time of Police from the current 51-60 days to 21
days as per the Karnataka Guarantee of Citizen Services Act, SAKALA. 83 The verification
requests are now directly sent from Passport Seva Kendra’s Software application to the
Police station level instead of the commissionerate level from where the passport
verification requests are sent to Police station level. 84 Currently under the “Direct to Thana”
scheme the Police personnel directly download the applications from the Passport
application at the designated Police station level and verify the antecedents in the Police-IT
software and also conduct the requisite visits. The Regional Passport office is also providing
Rs 100/- as an incentive to Police Department if the verification is completed within 21 days.
The national average for verification is 41 days and Delhi has the fastest verification time of
14 days. 85
9. The Supreme Court directive and the Draft Model Police Bill, 2006 call for the establishment
of Police Complaints Authorities at both the state and district level. The guidance to create
these police complaints bodies at the district level is particularly significant, as it is in the
districts where institutional remedies for police abuse and violence are the least accessible.
Of the fourteen states which have passed Police Acts post 2006 that create Police
Complaints Authorities:
a. Six states - Assam, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Rajasthan have
established Authorities at both the state and district level in their Police Acts; Five states
- Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Tripura and Uttarakhand – have legislated only state-
level Authorities. The Bihar Police Act, 2007 creates Authorities only at the district level,
while the Haryana Police Act, 2007 firmly establishes a state-level Authority. Karnataka
Police (Amendment) Act 2012 was passed in June 2012, however the Police Complaints
Authorities have still not been fully constituted.
b. Like all public authorities, Complaints Authorities have a statutory obligation under the
Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005 to proactively disclose a wide range of information
on their own, even if no one has specifically requested it. Dissemination of information
through internet websites is one of the measures stipulated in Section 4(4) of the RTI
Act. Of the nine operational Authorities, the Haryana Police Complaints Authority
(http://spcahry.nic.in/english/index.html) and the Tripura Police Accountability
Commission (www.tpac.nic.in) have created a dedicated website.
81
Delhi Police: http://navchetna.com/mentor.html[Retrieved on 23-01-2013]
82
Hyderabad Police, http://www.hyderabadpolice.gov.in/sharewithus/CrimeBuster.asp[Retrieved on 23-01-2013]
83
Karnataka Police, http://ksp.gov.in/home/passport-seva.php [Retrieved on 23-01-2013]
84
http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/1870981/report-wait-for-passport-may-shorten-by-a-month[Retrieved on 23-01-
2013]
85
http://newindianexpress.com/cities/bangalore/Rs-100-reward-hastens-police-passport-
check/2013/08/07/article1722464.ece [Retrieved on 23-01-2013]
c. The Haryana website is available in English and Hindi, whilst the Tripura website is
available in English. The Chandigarh Police Complaints Authority has a webpage
(http://chandigarh.gov.in/dept_pca.htm) within the website of the Chandigarh
administration available in English.
d. Although the law provides for guidelines and best practices for establishment of
websites for Police complaints, the States need to proactively take up this initiative to
improve the image of Police in public.
Figure 22: CCTNS Citizen portal services
5.8 Business Process Redesign Recommendations – CCTNS
As a part of design and development of CAS, NCRB had commissioned a study for identifying
important best practices and assess business process redesign requirements to be incorporated into
the CCTNS implementation framework. The Business Process redesign recommendations of CCTNS
project consolidate the best practices and reform recommendations of National Police commission,
Administrative reforms commissions and other pilot studies conducted for identifying critical success
factors for realization of outcomes and benefits of CCTNS program. The BPR recommendations
which have been identified based on analysis of best practices86 for consideration under CCTNS
project have been reproduced below. The National Institute of Smart Government (NISG), the
Central Project Management Consultant (CPMC) of CCTNS project had prepared the following
recommendations for NCRB/MHA to be circulated to all the States87.
S.No BPR Recommendation

1 Enable Internet as a channel for registration of incidents and informational services
• Submission of the incidents (petty thefts / eve-teasing / abuse) should be enabled
through internet and Dial - 100, in addition to the Police Station.
• Submission of every such request shall result in generation of a unique incident
number for the request that is provided to the complainant.
• Informational services that should be provided through the portal include:
• Primary contact numbers in the police station / Higher Offices; List of crime
prone areas;
• Viewing the status of all the incidents (either registered through internet or
Dial – 100 or Police Station) through the unique complaint number
• Viewing the status of all the general service requests through the unique
request number
• Information on the services and processes and steps for citizens to avail those
services and the expectations from the police and the next steps along with
some estimates of the time lines.
• Authorities to approach in case of non-satisfactory response from the police
stations
2 Provision of unique complaint number for complaints received through multiple channels
• Every complaint, irrespective of the nature of the complaint (cognizable, non-
cognizable, petty case.) and nature of subsequent action by the police will be entered
into CAS and a unique complaint number will be generated and provided to the
complainant.
• This will be true for complaints received through multiple channels (Police Station /
Internet / Dial-100 Control Room / Central Complaint Cell)
• The acknowledgement number (different from the F.I.R number or Non-Cognizable
Report number) will be generated by the system and will be the unique identifier of
the incident that can be tracked throughout the lifecycle of the case. Post this step,
the SHO can convert this to a F.I.R or a non-cognizable offence and take the
appropriate action.
• The Dial – 100 control room has to be enabled with CAS terminals and networked with
the DC where CAS is deployed for capturing the calls received from public.
86
BPR Recommendations, http://www.bpspaorissa.gov.in/pdf/1.pdf [ Retrieved on 21-07-2013]
87
BPR recommendations,
http://police.pondicherry.gov.in/cctns%20with%20link%20adds/CCTNS%20folder%20for%20uploding%2016042010/CCTN
S%20BPR%20Draft%20v0_1_.1.pdf, [ Retrieved on 21-07-2013]
3 Enable submission of general service requests through Internet and Citizen Service Centres
• Submission of the General Service Requests should be enabled through internet and
Common Service Center, in addition to the Police Station.
• The indicative list of such requests include:
• Copies of relevant case documents (FIR, PME Report, Charge Sheet,)
• Licenses for Arms / Film Shooting / Public Meetings / Processions / Rallies
• NOC for Establishments such as Hotels / Petrol Pumps
• Certificate for a lost document / lost cell phone
• Certificate for a lost cell phone
• No-objection certificate for job / vehicle
• Senior Citizen Registration / Maid Registration / Tenant Verification
• Submission of every such request shall result in generation of an unique request
number for the request that is provided to the petitioner
• Viewing the status of the request through the unique request number shall be
enabled on the portal.
4 Establish Central Complaints Cell in District HQ/ Commissionerate

• A Central Complaints Cell shall be constituted at the District / Commissionerate level
and made a common platform for the citizens to escalate grievances / petitions
where the police station response in unsatisfactory (non-registering of complaints,
long period of inactivity after registration).
• The cell will work under the SP or the Commissioner and will be responsible for
collating all the grievances and providing the status on the same to the SP /
Commissioner
• The cell should have the power to impose a reasonable fine on the complainant, if
upon an enquiry it is found that the complaint was frivolous or vexatious in order to
prevent frivolous and vexatious complaints.
5 Case specific parameterized forms and legal admissibility of system generated forms
• The data captured during the registration of a complaint/general service
request/petty case should be parameterized and customized (to the specific nature of
the complaint/request) to capture only the relevant data from the
complainant/public.
• The forms that currently capture the relevant information in a free-form text should
be parameterized and standardized across the country. The Core Application
Software must provide the appropriate set of values for each attribute (ex, major
head, minor head, and methods in Crime Details Form) in the forms.
• The forms (FIR, Arrest Form, Case Diary, Charge Sheet, Certificates issued for General
Service Requests.,) generated out of the system should be admissible legally to ensure
that the forms are not re-prepared manually for submission to the courts and other
external stakeholders.
6 Provision of automated system notifications, alerts and Reminders

• CAS system shall be used to capture the missing person / unidentified dead body
details / abandoned vehicles / property and the system will automatically send out
alerts / notifications to all the police stations with the information without the need
for police flashing such information on the radio message.
• Reminders for prosecution related information (deadline for remand extension,
deadline for filing a charge sheet…), reports from FSL, request for information from
any other agencies whether internal or external, etc. CAS will generate reminders to
the SHO and Investigation Officers well in advance to remind the officers of the
upcoming deadlines before which an action on the case has to be taken
• Automated system generated alerts will be created to assist the Investigation Officers
of any matching suspects that are arrested in a different jurisdiction or any similar
crimes committed in a different jurisdiction without any manual intervention
7 AFIS for fingerprint capture and computerized fingerprint searching

• AFIS terminals will be provided at all the major police stations.
• IO will scan the fingerprints of the accused and upload into the AFIS system.
• This data will be directly uploaded into the AFIS database.
• The AFIS terminal will also enable fingerprint search from the police station itself.
• There will be no paper requests for fingerprint reports from the AFIS cell at the SCRB.
8 Designated constables at jails with CAS (State) terminals to capture the prisoner movement
Information
• Jails shall be provided with CAS (State) terminals with access to update the Prisoner
movement information into the system.
• Jails shall be connected to the Data Center and Disaster Recovery Center of the State
where CAS (State) is deployed.
• A designated and trained constable shall be deployed at each of the Jails to capture
the prisoner movement details (ex: Jail entry and release dates, photographs and
fingerprints of convicts, under trials, arrested) through Core Application Software
using the networked CAS terminal at the Jail.
9 Use of email and messaging for intra-police Communication

• CAS Email and Messaging Service shall be used for transmitting the messages
(informational as well as request for information) across the department to the Police
Stations and vice-versa.
• While the urgent messages can still be transmitted across the radio, the police shall
be trained to use the electronic mode of communication through the CAS Email and
Messaging Service for transmitting messages from/to Police Station.
• An Instant Messenger service will also be institutionalized within the police
departments to facilitate immediate communication.
10 Phase-out Crime/ Criminal related physical registers at police stations and higher offices
• Data will be entered during the case lifecycle directly in CAS instead of manual paper
registers. CAS will not have direct mapping from paper registers onto digital registers.
Rather, data will be filled in naturally during the case lifecycle and will be stored in
the CAS database. This means that there will be no repeat or redundant data entry.
Searching of registers will be done using queries on computers.
• CAS will provide the users with a “Criminal and Suspect Master” view, that will list all
the details of the offenders, convicts, Strong suspects, ex-convicts, persons wanted on
outstanding warrants, suspects to watch,… in one single view to the IO
• CAS will provide the users with a “Property of Interest” view that will list the details of
all the property (abandoned, recovered, stolen,) in one single view to the IO.
11 Reduction in Reports (crime and criminal) prepared in Police Station

• Police Station henceforth will only prepare the Daily Situation Report and a Monthly
Summary Statement, both of which will be generated from CAS and submitted to the
higher office. All the other required reports will be generated using CAS at the higher
office where the report is required eliminate the need for collection and collation of
data at multiple offices.
• DSR should be generated from the system and forwarded within the system
to the higher office with the authorization of the SHO.
• The monthly crime review report in its current form will not be prepared at
the police station any longer. The senior officers will conduct the
monthly/periodic reviews through the dashboard and pre-defined reports
available in the CAS.
• A Monthly Summary Statement of all cases handled in the police station for the previous
month will be generated from the system) and sent to the immediate higher office by the
police station with the authorization of the SHO. It provides the users with a “Property of
Interest” view that will list the details of all the property (abandoned, recovered, stolen,)
in one single view to the IO.
12 Establish barcoding-based Malkhana / Seized Property Cell in District HQ /
Commissionerate
• A central bar-coding based Malkhana / Seized Property Cell backed up by an evidence
management system should be established to handle all the physical evidence at
either the divisional or sub-divisional level aligned with the courts.
• This cell will operate at a district or a circle level. A RFID Solution (Radio Frequency
Identification) can be used to tag the property which will eventually move between
the Police station, Courts and the Central Property Cell.
• Any physical records of the police station (e.g. case diaries, expert reports, etc.), after
being fed into the CAS database, can also be maintained in actual, at this central cell.
Paper records for cases pending or case completed will be maintained at this central
cell so as to free up the space in every police stations.
13 Enrich Field officers through mobile data terminals and handheld devices
• Mobile Data Terminals for Patrol Vehicles to provide access to police crime and
criminal records.
• GPS tracking systems for Patrol Vehicles to monitor its location and enable faster
identify and dispatch the closest vehicle to the report incident form the control room.
• Handheld Devices (e.g. Laptops, PDAs, Smart Phones, etc.) to access the Crime and
Criminal database, digital crime maps of the beat area for IOs and Beat Policemen in
the field
• Mobile Biometric Fingerprint Readers that read finger prints to help officers identify
or record suspects without needing to return to the office.
14 Deploy advanced crime analytics systems

• Advanced analytics will be performed on the digitally captured crime and criminal
data for every police station. Detailed analysis will generate crime and criminal trends
that will be used by the police officials in preventing and detecting crimes. Crime
Analysis through Analytics will help in the following activities
• Mapping of the crime data onto a visual map of the area
• Generating crime trends by combining time, location, offence type, etc.
• Suggesting optimal Beat path and time basis beat crime activity
15 Deploy police knowledge management system

• A Police Repository of important forms, manuals, procedures, standards, case
checklists, and important reference cases will be built over a period of time by
utilizing the CAS database and by digitizing important police documentation.
• A dedicated team will manage the content and the infrastructure for running this
application.
16 Establish central prosecution cell in District HQ/ Commissionerate
• A centralized cell shall be established and made responsible for all the court related
work from the various police stations in the District / Commissionerate.
• The prosecution-cell should be aligned with the courts rather than the police stations.
The officers/constables within the prosecution-cell will be assigned to separate courts
and will be made responsible for trial matters, witness briefing of the all the cases
under trial within the assigned court, and the execution of summons and warrants.
• The execution responsibility of the summons/warrants in a different jurisdiction
should be given to the prosecution cell where summon/ warrant has to be served.
17 Establish general service request processing cell at District HQ/ Commissionerate

• A centralized cell shall be established and made responsible for all the processing of
the general service requests within the District / Commissionerate.
• Once the certificate/license/permission request is received (directly or Common
Service Center or Internet) at the centralized service cell, the request will be
acknowledged with a unique tracking number.
• In cases where the department builds central repository of data such as vehicle index
containing the list of all vehicles involved in crime or traffic incidents and criminal and
strong suspect index containing information of all people wanted on a warrant or in a
crime, the cell can verify the data in the central system and issue the certificates in
real time completely removing the need for interacting with the local police station.
• In instances, where inputs are required from the Police Station, the request can be
forwarded to the Police Station for inputs. However, the ownership of the request will
lie with the central processing cell. Once the inputs are received, the central
processing cell will issue the final report to the petitioner.
• The same cell can be enabled to handle the permissions, licenses and even requests
for any case-related information as copies of FIR or medical certificates.
18 Develop a separate IT cadre in Police

 A separate Police Information Technology Cadre should be developed within the
various State Police Forces. Personnel hired within this cadre will be a part of the
Indian Police but will not perform the standard field duties of the Police. They will be
stationed within the Police Stations, Higher Offices, DCRBs, SCRBs, Data Centres, etc.,
and will not be transferred out of their role description into another field job.
• The IT cadre will have a complete career progression plan and ranks which will be at
par with the Field Police. Movement into the IT Cadre will either be by selection or by
nomination/choice from within the Field Police. Once a part of the IT Cadre, the
personnel will have to spend a minimum amount of time within the cadre. The
compensation of the IT Cadre will be similar to the Field Staff.
• Special Trainings will be imparted to the IT Cadre basis needs and requirements. Such
trainings will focus on latest IT Skills and certifications. They could also include
trainings on specialized police IT applications.
19 Eliminate corroborative entries in general Diary

Process Challenges
• Requirement of corroborative entries results in police stations maintaining a dummy /
rough station diary before copying the details into the “Station Diary”
• There is a lot of information that is common between the entries in FIR and General
Diary
Recommendations
• For the tasks that are performed on the Core Application Software, the corresponding
entries will only be captured in CAS and need not be repeated in the General Diary.
• Complaint Registration / General Service / Petition Registration
• FIR / Non-Cognizable Report
• General Service / Petition Report (ex, NOC, …)
• All forms including but not limited to the 7-IIF used by the Police Station
during the course of investigation
• All forms used by the Police Station during the course of prosecution
20 Devise balanced scorecard for police station performance management

Process Challenges
• Performance Measurement Primarily based on FIR Metrics Acts as a Disincentive for
Registering Complaints.
• Crime statistics may not a comprehensive indicator as a significant time of police is
also spent on beats/patrols, general community disorder, law and order maintenance
duties, inquiring into several petty cases, non-cognizable offences and providing
general services
Recommendations
• A more balanced performance management framework should be devised for
monitoring and evaluating the performance of police stations. With the growing need
for the police to be more citizen friendly, citizen service delivery should become an
important parameter for evaluating their performance.
• Citizen Service Delivery (ex, Turnaround Time for Complaints / General
Services)
• Core Policing Services (ex, Crime Statistics, Crime Prevention Measures)
• Human Resource Indicators (ex, Resource Utilization, Duty Rotation Indicator)
• Internal Processes (ex, Usage of CAS Systems)
21 Police should be given authority to return recovered Property

Process Challenges
• The traditional approach of Policing clubs a variety of disparate functions in a single
police force and concentrating all authority at one level. This leads to dilution of skills
within the force and creates problems of resource allocation and management
among different duties.
• There is no skill specialization of the police force in terms of crack teams for a single
kind of job.
Recommendations
• In case a case is going on, the Police should be given the authority to return the
recovered or seized property back to the involved citizen(s) after taking a legal
document/ guarantee from them to present the property in Court when asked for.
• Post a case, the Police should be handed over the custody of the property and should
be allowed to interact with the concerned citizen and return the property from the
police station where the complaint was registered
22 Out-source non-core police functions

Process Challenges
• The Police force is already burdened with a huge case workload. Adding to the
workload is non-core policing activities like post-dispatch, verification, etc. which are
entrusted to the Police. As a result, the time available with the police personnel to
focus on core policing of crime and criminal investigation is reduced.
Recommendations
• Delivery of court summons and other court papers, antecedent checks/ character
verification required in the context of passport applications, job verifications etc.,
escorting and production of prisoners in courts, maintenance of case exhibits and
records, cash escort services, and street patrolling functions should be outsourced to
a privage agency or revenue / local authorities in a phased manner.
• Maharashtra State Security Corporation (SSC) has offered to provide security to the
monorail and metro stations in the city. SSC will have to take up responsibility of
guarding government and semi-government premises, vital government installations
and infrastructure projects.
23 Segregate investigation, law and order and local policing functions

Process Challenges
• The Police force is already burdened with a huge case workload. Adding to that are
the non-core policing activities like post-dispatch, verification, etc., which are
entrusted to the Police. As a result, the time available with the police personnel to
focus on core policing of crime and criminal investigation is reduced.
Recommendations
• Three broad categories of functions can be clearly identified and the police force can
be structured on those lines, while setting up mechanisms for effective coordination
to prevent water-tight compartmentalisation.
• Crime Investigation
• Law & Order
• Local Policing
24 Setup a reception desk at police stations receiving large number of complaints
• A reception desk should be setup in each police station that receives considerable
number of complaints and petition requests.
• The reception desk should be manned by constables trained in
• Soft skills to handle victims as well as the variety of request from citizens.
• Complaint Registration to ask the questions relevant for the case and all the
necessary details to register the complaint.
25 Creation of non-emergency response number

• Emergency and non-emergency call numbers should be separated and should be
handled differently in terms of the intended follow up and service levels.
• There should be separate numbers for non-emergency numbers. (e.g. there could be
separate numbers for senior citizens helpline, children’s helpline, police queries and
information, non-emergency police situations, etc.).
• While the 100 number should be manned 24*7 directly by the police, the non-
emergency response numbers could be out-sourced and run with pre-decided Service
SLAs.
• The non-emergency response numbers could be used for reporting incidents /
complaints of a non-serious or immediate type, redirecting citizens to the appropriate
department in case the matter does not fall into the jurisdiction of the police, etc.
26 Provision for Preliminary Enquiry for certain category of Cognizable and Non-Cognizable
Offenses
• For a certain category of minor cognizable offences, police shall be given additional
time (ex, 1-3 days depending on the nature of offence) before proceeding with
registration of FIR and investigation. The police may be allowed to undertake a
preliminary enquiry (where necessary) within this timeframe. However, the incident
will still be registered at the time of reporting.
• With respect to Non-Cognizable Offences, while police will be required to take the
permission of magistrate for certain category of cases, police shall be allowed to
proceed with preliminary inquiry / investigation into a certain category of non-
cognizable cases (threatening, abuse.,) without the need for prior permission from
the magistrate.
• The Police should have the provision (for certain category of non-cognizable offences)
for closing a complaint through issuing a formal warning or getting a written affidavit
from the accused.
Table 2: BPR Recommendation
6 Best practices-International
6.1 Schengen information systems for registration-UK/EU
The Schengen area is the territory of European continent identified under the Schengen Agreement
of 1985 which guarantees free movement of persons. As Europe with its multi-linguistic and multi-
cultural demographics represents Indian sub-continent and States to certain extent, the Schengen
mechanism which enables seamless movement of individuals across borders presents a case to
study processes and systems involved in coordinated function of multiple agencies like Border
guards, Police Customs, National security and other authorities88.
The cornerstone of Schengen Agreement is Integrated Border Management (IBM), wherein the
signatory States have abolished all internal borders in lieu of a single external border. IBM involves i)
Border controls (Checks and surveillance) including relevant risk analysis and crime intelligence, ii)
detection and investigation of cross border crime in coordination with all competent law
enforcement authorities, iii) Four-tier access control model (measures in third countries,
cooperation with neighboring countries, border control, control in the area of free movement) , iv)
inter-agency cooperation for border management and v) coordination and coherence of activities by
all member States. Common rules and procedures have been set forth regarding visas, asylum
requests and border controls and to guarantee security in the entire Schengen area cooperation and
coordination mechanisms between various Police and Judiciously authorities have been
incorporated into the Schengen framework. At the heart of operations of Schengen is the Schengen
Information System (SIS) which allows national border control and judicial authorities to obtain
information on persons and objects89.
The Schengen Information System (SIS) is a governmental database used by European countries to
maintain and distribute information on individuals and pieces of property of interest. The intended
uses of this system are for national security, border control and law enforcement purposes. SIS
does not record travelers’ entries into and exits from the Schengen Area (there is no Schengen-wide
centralized database tracking entries and exits in all 26 Schengen Member States). However, 10
Schengen Member States (Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland,
Portugal, Slovakia and Spain), as well as Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania, have national databases
which record traveler’s entries and exits, although data is not exchanged between the national
databases of these countries.
A Central SIS (C-SIS) of Schengen is connected to the national networks (N-SIS) which is further
supplemented by a network known as SIRENE (Supplementary Information Request at the National
Entry)90.
A second technical version of this system, SIS II, has gone live in May 2013 under the responsibility of
the European Commission. SIS II will include the ability to store new types of data and further
integrate with the new Member States of the Union. The SIS II system will also be open to use by a
greater number of institutions (for example, by legal authorities such as Europol91). Personal data
88
Catalogue of Best practices for IBM
http://www.schengen.mira.gov.ro/English/Documente/utile/catutil/Updated%20EU%20Schengen%20Catalogue.pdf
89
EU monitor http://www.eumonitor.eu/9353000/1/j4nvhdfcs8bljza_j9vvik7m1c3gyxp/viz5s1wvd6yi
90
Schengen System SIS best practice catalogue,
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/1406742/st13039.en11.pdf [Retrieved on 2-07-2013]
91
EuroPol website https://www.europol.europa.eu/ [ Retrieved on 24-07-2013]
will be readable through one centralized data system in all Europe, by the police force and by
customs during identity checks.
The European Union has released several best practice catalogues to be followed by various
agencies within the Schengen system. A Catalogue on best practices for “Alerts for arrest for
Surrender or Extradition purpose was released by the Council of European Union with respect to use
of SIS and SIRENE. Relevant best practices attributable to Police functioning and important to the
Indian context of inter-State information sharing with respect to crime and criminal investigation are
presented below. It is to be noted the best practices have been notified as the best among a series
of alternative methods to perform certain tasks in multiple country contexts and over a period of
time have become standard practices.
S.No EU council Recommendations Best practices to be followed by members

1  There should be regular coordination  Permanent board for coordinating inter-agency
of inter-agency cooperation at all cooperation.
levels.  Revolving chairmanship between participants.
 There should be regular meetings  Common radio communications (e.g. TETRA).
between heads of services where the  Joint risk analysis centres.
focus for the year is decided, goals  Joint risk analysis.
are set and guidelines are  Common crime intelligence and pre-trial
determined. investigations groups.
 Common use of databases.
 These decisions are elaborated in  Common patrols at green and blue borders.
greater detail in planning meetings  Maintenance and further development of NCCs.
between heads at regional level.
Actual schedules for joint operations,
activities and other measures are put
into effect by cooperation meetings
between local heads.
2 Information concerning risk indicators, Profiles are maintained in databases (e-
risk profiles and typical modus environment) and are available for border guards in
operandi of cross-border crime should a usable way. For example “top 10” lists.
be provided systematically to officers
at the local level.
3 There should be cooperation for  Joint crime intelligence and investigation groups.
detection  Common use of databases.
and investigation of cross-border  Common databases.
crime, illegal migration, smuggling of  Common risk analysis at all levels.
drugs, weapons, ammunition, stolen  Common meetings and training programmes
vehicles and property, as well as the  Common threat and risk assessments.
use of forged and stolen documents  Common procedures for different situations which
There should be exchange of are regularly tested.
information on situation related to
illegal border crossings or cross-border
crimes.
4 Communication infrastructure  Appropriate maintenance and service level
 There should be a stable national commitments should be provided to guarantee
network  High availability of the network the response
 A rapid response time to queries time should be less than 5 seconds
should be ensured  At best, consular posts should have on-line access
 Appropriate and secure to the relevant SIS data
communication
solutions should be available to
allow queries in SIS by mobile
terminals
5  A SIRENE must be set up and  All offices responsible for international police co-
designated as the single point of operation, should be accessed through a single
contact for each Schengen State in point of contact, be contained within the same
respect of SIS alerts and post-hit management structure and located at the same
procedure site
 SIRENE operators should have 24/7  SIRENE staffing and support services should be
access to information sources or regularly reviewed in the light of changes in
databases which provide alerts to workload and working practices
the SIS or contain information
required for supplementary
information or for resolving issues
with alerts the principle that
Schengen alerts take precedence
over Interpol alerts should be
respected and enforced bearing in
mind the primacy of SIS alerts, in
those exceptional situations when
SIRENE, Interpol or any other police
co-operation authorities (e.g.
liaison officers) use their own
channels in order to provide the
same information on the same
person or object, a cross-reference
should be made to ensure proper
coordination in other Member
States
 The SIRENE must have the number
of staff which corresponds to the
number of alerts, number of hits
and amount of related work,
communication and specified tasks
6  A national section for the SIS must  Maintenance and service level commitments for
be set up providing 24/7 operation hardware and software should be provided to
with sufficient technical support at ensure the 24/7 operation
all times  Real-time synchronization of copies should be
 Data integrity between N-SIS and carried out
any national technical copies,  Regular database comparisons should be
where these exist, must be undertaken
guaranteed
7  The SIRENE must provide 24/7  Continuity of management, staff and technical
cover for communication with all aspects is desirable for efficient operations
other SIRENEs and national flexibility of working arrangements may assist in
authorities managing the workload at peak periods
 All staff, including those who are  Maintenance and service level commitments for
assigned to work out-of-office hardware and software should be provided to
hours, should have the required ensure 24/7 operations
competence and experience to  An electronic workflow/case management
provide the necessary service to system for SIRENE operators has been found to
other SIRENEs and deal with any enhance the quality of work and reduce the
incoming alerts possibility of mistakes. Automatic routing of
 In addition to administrative and incoming messages to the workflow system
operational staff, there is a defined supports these goals
need for IT support staff  The electronic workflow/case management
 The SIRENE must be equipped with system should interact with the N.SIS application
an and national systems in respect of the
efficient and effective workflow management of incoming and outgoing alerts;
system this should include automatic indications:
which respects the rules of the o of whether a requested flag has been added
current version of the “Data or deleted
exchange between SIRENE” o of when an alert has changed
 In addition to the agreed o of the arrival of a new Article 95 alert
procedures for the exchange of o of the deletion of an alert when a file
forms, the SIRENE must use the o related to that alert exists in the electronic
proper mailboxes for operative e- workflow/case management system
mail exchanges and fingerprint  In cases where communication has to be carried
transmissions on the dedicated out via the internet, the official mail address of
SIRENE network the SIRENE should be used
 The use of non-certified e-mail addresses should
be avoided
8  Council Recommendation on  For such electronic transmission, the SIRENE
SIRPIT, a picture transfer procedure (SIRPIT) should be
method for electronic exchange of available in each SIRENE system.
photos and fingerprints between
law enforcement services, should
be applied
 SIRENE should be provided with a
direct link to the national AFIS
database in order to access data in
electronic format within its
competences
9 Monitoring system use and access  Logs and audit trails in respect of SIRENE files
 The national use of the Schengen IT should be pro-actively monitored and retained in
systems must be monitored in accordance with national law
order to ensure detection of  Electronic workflow/case management systems
74unauthorized activities provide the best means of ensuring that every
action taken on a SIRENE file is logged and
 The transmission of personal data audited
shall be recorded in accordance
with Art. 103 of the Schengen
Convention
10 Handling of Data media  Any communication with consular posts on SIS
 The number of technical copies SIS data must be secure
data must be restricted to the  The erroneous distribution of data by
minimum necessary (see Art. inappropriately recycling material, including
102(2) of the Schengen Convention) paper should be prevented
 procedures must be established for  Replacement of media should be carried out by
handling and storing SIS data in competent authorities or designated/screened
order to protect such data against company
unauthorized retransmission or  Procedures should be in place for storing and
misuse destroying material and/or maintaining a
o archives should be secure clean desk policy
o access to archives should be  Electronic archives should provide the best
controlled and restricted to security guarantees including logging of access
designated staff to and use of the files and audit facilities
o such access should be  The inclusion of automatic weeding and deletion
monitored and registered functions in electronic archives is recommended
archives should be managed  In the case of physical archives, a combination
to ensure that deletion policies of a magnetic card and a personal code to
are followed access the archives, or procedures of
comparable security, are thought to be the best
solution
 print-outs in respect of electronic archives
should be avoided and in any case destroyed
after use
11  There is a need for querying or  Examples of this include phonetic queries,
searching that goes beyond exact wildcard queries, fuzzy logic, soundex –
match searching  It should be ensured that such a single query is
 Queries on fixed and mobile not prevented by national legislation
terminals should include queries of  it should be ensured that single query is quick
the SIS. Single query for both national and easy the largest possible number of data
and international systems is the most querying devices should be provided to end-
efficient way to guarantee systematic users to allow direct queries
consultation of the SIS- direct access  Alerts should be pre-checked at the national
is preferable database level and from there be transferred to
the N.SIS in an automated way
 In the case of misused identity, the procedure
for dealing with a hit on a misused identity and
the subsequent investigations that should be
carried out to establish whether the person is
the victim or the perpetrator of the misuse
should all be clearly displayed on the screen
Table 3: EU Council Recommendations & Best Practices to be followed by members
The above are some of the documented best practices published in the EU catalogue which are
relevant to successful functioning of SIRENE and SIS as the key Information Technology and
Governance platform for inter-border policing to enable smooth functioning of Schengen system
across Europe. The reader may further refer to Schengen SIS website for more comprehensive
information and guidelines on this subject92.
92
Schengen-SIS website http://www.consilium.europa.eu/policies/council-configurations/justice-et-affaires-interieures-
(jai)/sirene-schengen-information-system.aspx?lang=en/ [ Retrieved on 1-07-2013]
Schengen best practices provide a perspective on how to create integrated inter-state border
management units with collaboration from multiple agencies (State excise, Central excise,
Police, Transport, District administration, Central paramilitary organizations like BSF, CISF, SSB,
ITBP and other Departments) including Police Departments. The principles can be successfully
applied for interstate check posts in India for screening vehicles and persons of interest across
different Police jurisdictions. The Schengen practices can be utilized for design of interfaces,
integration points, Governance mechanisms and information exchange protocols for various
systems/sub-systems involved in inter-state check posts management and tackling the
problem of inter-state crime and movement of criminals.
6.2 Mobile Scanning of Fingerprints
Early applications of biometrics, mainly fingerprints, were primarily used by forensics and law
enforcement agencies for crime and criminal investigation. Even though fingerprints were first used
over 100 years ago to convict a criminal the first generation of automatic fingerprint identification
systems (AFIS) for law enforcement agencies did not become available until the 1970s. In the last
one to two decades, Biometric readers and systems including a variety of fingerprint, iris, and face
recognition systems have been developed and deployed for use in controlled environments for
criminal, civilian and commercial systems. Most of these systems functioned and were standardized
in controlled stationary environments.
However in line with the emerging needs of maintenance of public order and security, confirmation
of unique identities on the spot in the field is a necessity to significantly reduce investigation times.
In line with this requirement, with an aim to address the problems of accuracy, throughput,
scalability, system security and the need to uniquely identify individuals on the move without
infringing on their rights, second generation biometrics are being developed. The scientific
developments in sensor technologies, authentication of multiple dimensions such as Fingerprint,
Face, Iris, Palm, DNA, Hand veins, Voice, etc. and interoperability across various applications have
led to the development of the present day second generation biometric being used in countries like
US,UK, EU and Hongkong. There are four technological developments that have lead to evolution of
second generation biometrics systems; (i) emergence of potentially new biometric traits, (ii) added
value offered by soft biometrics, (iii) effective use of multiple biometric traits for large-scale human
identification, and (iv) technologies, to ensure a high degree of privacy, security and flexibility in the
usage of biometrics systems 93. Although most of the systems are used in Civilian systems, there is a
need for legislation approvals for use of multi-dimensional biometrics in Criminal systems.
The second generation biometrics not only significantly reduce the response times through faster
and accurate identification of suspects and persons of interest, but also help correlating and drawing
inference in for crime and criminal investigation process through matching of multiple sources of
information. Mobile fingerprint scanning devices with improved sensitivities which leverage the
power of second generation biometrics have been presented below as best practice examples along
with the guidelines provided proactively by civil society groups.
i) The Mobile Identification at Scene (MIDAS) project was initiated in UK for transforming
the speed of criminal investigation for on-spot matching of fingerprints with the National
93
Second Generation Biometrics
http://biometrics.cse.msu.edu/Publications/GeneralBiometrics/JainKumarNextGenBiometrics_BookChap10.pdf [Retrieved
on 12-07-2013]
fingerprint database94 in 2008. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), 1984
governs the collection of fingerprints where the consent of the individual must be taken
for collecting the fingerprint. The Serious organized crime and Police act, 2005 provides
for collection of fingerprints without consent under certain circumstances. A similar
project called as Project Lantern was also initiated for capturing fingerprints by voluntary
consent and simultaneous use of Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) for the
motorists. The UK had to make legislative changes to accommodate the use of Mobile
fingerprint identification, amidst fears of invasion of privacy, personal freedoms and
fears on the use of stored fingerprint/ Bio information retention policy95. Currently 28
Police Departments in UK including London Metropolitan Police have started using
mobile fingerprint scanners under well-defined processes supported by legislation96. The
fingerprint captured through mobile devices are not stored on the system/national
database or any database and are only taken to match with the existing fingerprints in
the database which are captured only by process established by law.
ii) The Network for Police Monitoring a civil society group (The Network for Police
Monitoring is a coalition of legal, community and protest groups to monitor and resist
excessive, intimidating or violent policing.) has published Guide to rights for Mobile
Fingerprinting which has been reproduced below97.
a. “When can police take fingerprints with a mobile device?

i. If you are under arrest and you are taken to a police station, the police have
the power to take your fingerprints (by force if necessary).
ii. The police can take fingerprints away from a police station ONLY if they have
reason to suspect you have committed an offence AND they have reason to
doubt that you have provided your real name and address.
iii. If the police have grounds to take fingerprints, they must first give you an
opportunity to give your details. They can fingerprint you only if there are
‘reasonable grounds’ to doubt you have given your real name and address.
iv. If you have provided a document showing your name and address, they must
tell you why this is not sufficient on its own to prove your identity.
v. If you refuse to give your fingerprints (and the police have ‘reasonable
suspicion’), they have the power to take fingerprints without consent, or to
arrest you for the offence you are suspected of, and take you to the police
station.
iii) What if I haven’t committed an offence?
a. To lawfully take your fingerprints the police must suspect that you have committed
an offence. They MUST tell you what offence you are reasonably suspected of
having committed and why you are reasonably suspected of committing it. If the
police will not or cannot do this, you SHOULD NOT provide your fingerprints (or your
name and address).
b. If the police allege that you have committed an offence, MAKE SURE they explain
what offence it is that has been committed, and what reason they have for
suspecting you.
94
MIDAS Equity and privacy Impact assessment http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/pdfs/policy09/consultation-
response-to-mobile-fingerprinting.pdf [Retrieved on 12-07-2013]
95
Criminal investigation, http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/sites/default/files/files/Bioinformation%20Chapter%204%20-
%20Criminal%20investigation.pdf [ Retrieved on 12-07-2013]
96
MetPolicehttp://content.met.police.uk/News/Rollout-of-mobile-fingerprint-scanners/1400008735398/1257246745756
[ Retrieved on 12-07-2013]
97
Fingerprint capture by Mobile devices, http://netpol.org/?s=mobile+fingerprints&submit=Search [ Retrieved on 12-07-
2013]
c. Being stopped and searched, DOES NOT by itself give the police powers to take your
fingerprints OR your name and address.
d. Being detained to prevent a breach of the peace, or held in a protest kettle, DOES
NOT by itself give the police powers to take your fingerprints OR your name and
address.
iv) If the police have suspicion that you are breaching bail conditions, they have the power
to arrest you. A suspicion that you are breaching bail conditions DOES NOT give them the
power to take your fingerprints on a mobile scanner, as this is NOT an offence.
v) What if I am suspected of Anti-social behavior?
a. If the police allege that you have engaged in anti-social behavior, INSIST they tell you
what they ‘reasonably believe’ you have done that was likely to caused harassment,
alarm and distress.
b. If the police cannot or will not tell you why they believe you were likely to cause
harassment alarm or distress, , the police do NOT have powers to take your
fingerprints, and you SHOULD NOT give a name and address.
c. If the police DO you have reason to believe you have engaged in anti-social behavior,
they DO have the power to demand your name and address. The police WILL then
have the power take your fingerprints IF you refuse to provide your name and
address, OR they suspect you of providing a false name and address.”
The above guidelines provided to citizens/residents are only advisory in nature designed by
NetPol as a response to public interests and can be considered as a best practice for participatory
approach by voluntary agencies for enabling balanced use of technology in line with protection of
individual freedom.
Mobile devices for patrol and beat officials have become an important tool for reporting
information from the field level. The scanning of fingerprints of suspects/ volunteered
individuals with consent at the field level provides for quick identification of suspects and
solving of crimes and significantly reduces the time for investigations. Further the pool of
suspects as a consideration set is enriched for timely investigation closures. However as per
law fingerprints can be collected only from convicts and arrested persons (as per Indian
Evidence Act and Identification of prisoners act) and cannot be collected from
suspects/individuals without their consent in India. Although scanning of fingerprints at
field location can provide immediate results, the issues of privacy and conflict with personal
freedoms remain unresolved. The multipronged approach adopted by UK
police/Government for enabling mobile scan of fingerprints (Fingerprints are not stored, but
only compared with the database of existing enrolled fingerprints) is presented as a best
practice to replicate the same at other locations.
6.3 HOLMES2- Investigation management system-UK
HOLMES 2 is an integrated investigation toolkit application designed for investigation process

management especially focused at major complex and serious crimes98. HOLMES (Home Office
Large Major Enquiry System) was initiated in 1986 for solving major complex crimes as an
administrative and decision support system. However HOLMES did not have advanced features of
analytics, functionalities for building correlations and relationships and information exchange,
required for quickly solving large and complex crimes and disasters.
This led to the decision for a new system which was called as HOLMES2. HOLMES 2 was successfully
launched in 2001 and has been enhanced ever since to meet the emerging requirements. The
HOLMES 2 application platform consists of both custom built software and COTS (Commercial off the
Shelf) software product components. Although the platform itself is not a best practice, the
HOLMES2 solution which has been specifically designed for investigation of serious crimes stands
out as one of the examples for best practice with respect to design of a IT solution focused as a
specialized function for the needs of crime /criminal investigation Departments.
The main aims of HOLMES 2 may be summarized as:
1. to collect and manage vast amounts of information and intelligence data

2. to process and prioritize information to assist in the identification of suitable lines of enquiry
3. to manage the allocation and progress of tasks assigned to investigating officers
4. to analyze information through graphical representation
5. to produce documentation suitable for presentation in court
The application platform has been designed for the work of Major Incident Room (MIR) which is the
administrative centre from where all major criminal investigations are coordinated and monitored.
The ingenious system embeds Computer intelligence for the first time in the form of a Dynamic
Reasoning Engine to analyze various data and to develop scenarios based on both rigorous
computing analysis and human inference.
HOLMES was designed and built by Unisys on Oracle databases, Microsoft platforms and also
contains varied COTS components like i2 Note book, Rapid Application Development suites and
other third party components. HOLMES2 has key features like Indexing, Graphical reading and
indexing, Free text searching, List management and case preparation, automatic index monitoring,
database comparison, linkage of incidents, etc., which were considered as best practice for design of
similar systems elsewhere. The key modules of HOLMES 2 are as follows, which individually and in
combination have helped solve several important crimes.
 “Document Management enables the flow of all documents to be monitored and controlled
throughout the investigation. Senior investigating officers can view the state of each document
and quickly identify bottlenecks in the process.
 Workflow Management allows law enforcement organisations to tailor HOLMES 2 to suit their
individual work practices.
 Graphical Indexing provides the facility to visualize the indexing by the automatic generation of
a link chart. The user can also index directly from a marked up copy of the document, thus
eliminating the need for the user to re-key the data.
 Record Management enables all structured data to be quickly retrieved for research and
analysis. Structured data is searched before creation to reduce the risk of duplication. Powerful
98
HOLMES 2 http://www.holmes2.com/holmes2/whatish2/
search facilities include exact matching, truncated matching, synonym matching and wild card
searches.
 Task Management facilities allow the user to allocate actions to investigating officers and
monitor the progress. Actions can be prioritized and the priority level of an action can be
modified at any time. HOLMES 2 provides the facility to view a graphical representation of
outstanding actions and officer workload to assist in the assessment of work outstanding,
staffing levels and bottlenecks in the process.
 Exhibit Management provides a facility to manage and track the movement of all crime-related
property throughout the investigation. A full movement history is maintained for each exhibit.
Whenever an exhibit is taken from its storage place, the details of the removal are recorded.
This maintains an audit trail that can be presented to anyone questioning the integrity of the
exhibit.
 Research and Analysis provides the possibility to produce sequence of events charts and
association (link) charts, and compare databases to identify potential links with similar
investigations.
 Disclosure Management manages the disclosure of unused material in an investigation. It allows
the Disclosure Officer to perform primary and secondary disclosure to assess the material and
produce the relevant schedules for the Crown Prosecution Service.
 Court Preparation facilities allow all material required for court, including documents and
exhibits, to be prepared efficiently and professionally. The graphical presentation allows the
system to be used in court to show how complex information flows are linked.”
Another important use of HOLMES 2 lies in Disaster Management. The reason for this can be seen in
the similarities that exist between the investigation of a major incident and a major disaster. In case
of a disaster, HOLMES 2 collaborates with the facilities for disaster management via the Casualty
Bureau. The additional functions required for Casualty Bureau operations, like
recording Interpol data and specific action management facilities, are fully integrated into the
HOLMES 2. HOLMES 2 also provides the ability to pool resources in order to handle more effectively
the initial peak load of missing person calls from the public. There is also a fully mobile version of
HOLMES 2 which can be run on a laptop for use in courts or while travelling.
As one of the pioneering applications used for crime investigation, the design elements and solution
components of HOLMES2 have been considered as a best practice for design of similar
comprehensive and cost-effective applications in other parts of the world.
The availability of comprehensive information on one platform/system in well-defined

compartments/sub-systems enables efficient mixing and matching of information to
generate meaningful inferences. The need for such a platform was increasingly felt by the
Investigating officers for solving complex cases which deal with vast amounts of data.
HOLMES 2 which brings together several best practices for design and development of
Crime analysis and records management applications became a hall mark for design of
similar applications in this area. HOLMES 2 also represents an application which was built
bringing together several components/modules/applications which were developed on
different technologies.
Figure 25: HOLMES2 screens
6.4 Police and Social media
Social media have been defined as “internet-based applications, which [allow for] the creation and
exchange of user-generated content”. In only a few years, social media networks have seen an
unprecedented adoption rate when compared to other media. “It took Radio 38 years to reach 50
million listeners; Terrestrial TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users. The Internet took four years
to reach 50 million people, in less than nine months, Facebook added 100 million users,” as per a
study on the power of social media99.
The exponential proliferation of high speed wireless networks and mobile devices and ever
increasing internet penetration has made this medium a powerful mode of access to various public
services. Various Government Departments have also started using social media like Twitter to
broadcast important public information. A case in a point is how social media like twitter has been
ingeniously used by Government recruitment boards to disseminate information on employment
news, recruitment schedules, exam schedules, etc. with a linking reference to the original
Department website.
The use of Social media by Police in the present day scenario is also neither new nor a path breaking
approach to Policing. Various Police Departments both in Urban and rural areas around the world
have started their own Facebook pages, Twitter handles, YouTube accounts which citizens and
residents subscribe to. Successful social media experiments in crime prevention and detection have
also been reported in USA and EU countries.
Some of the key observations100 and findings with respect to use of Social media by Police are as
follows.
1. Social media is about sharing information on a large network and the lure of this medium is
about speed and efficiency. News on social media spreads like wildfire across the world in
milliseconds. While Social media is very fast and efficient, it is accepted that Police have to
take their own time to make any Statement on a crime or an incident as the focus for Police
is to build a comprehensively investigated case for solving the crime rather than reporting an
event for creating fanfare.
2. It is also very difficult for Police to report an incident of public interest or crime prevention,
when the matter is under investigation. ( In case of Twitter, the information has to be
mentioned in 140 characters in a very succinct and yet informative way, which is not the
priority or specialization of Police)
3. Police are naturally anxious with respect to law enforcement in the social media universe
and would not prefer following Police pages or Twitter handles.
4. Social media is mostly about personalization and about persons and their personal lives,
whereas Police and law enforcement is about legal standards which may have serious
repercussions and conflicts with personal lives.
5. Police officers and personnel who represent authority of the State in general also feel the
need to be underexposed and be in the shadow of security to balance their professional and
personal lives.
99
Qualman, E. 2009. Social Media: Fad or Revolution? http://searchenginewatch.com/ar ticle/2066771/Social-Media-Fad-
or-Revolution
100
Using Technology to taking Community Policing to next level, The Police Chief magazine, online version
http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display&article_id=2425&issue_id=72011
6. For Police Departments, it is only the designated Public Information officer/Public relations
officer who handles social media for the organization. Most of the work is event-driven to
spread awareness about crime prevention and the steps taken by Police to ensure standards
of public service delivery. However as social media is about multiple contacts and updating
multiple sites across the network. The volume of information to be disseminated for vast
audience and also to be responsive to multiple stakeholders further makes the job tedious.
7. The ethnic, socio-cultural and religious sensitivities also add to another dimension towards a
caution for use of social media by Police.
8. It is also to be noted that there in addition to the Web pages and sites created by Police
Departments, there have been several bogus accounts, alternate sites started by private
individuals and certain interested parties in the name of Police Department and there is no
proper control over the springing up of such sites/Fan pages/etc., nor their authenticity or
veracity could be directly established.
9. Questions on the utility of social media and such sites and the issues of digital inclusion in
terms of exclusion of a majority of disconnected population have also been raised at various
forums.
10. Police are also confronted with real-world effects of social media like organization of online
parties, stalking, child abuse, announcement of suicide attempts, etc. and therefore have to
be prepared to handle such outcomes which flow from virtual to real world.
11. The credible presence of Police on social media universe reduces the impact of rumors and
speculations about various aspects relating to peace and order in the society.
12. Social media in conjunction with photo and video sharing sites has become an excellent
platform for crowdsourcing of information for eliciting information on missing persons
/suspects/accused and associated crimes thereof.
13. Social media is a bottom-up phenomenon and Police in general works through a Top-Down
hierarchical approach. The individual is free to communicate and connect in the social media
universe and spontaneously become a part of larger interest groups and networks, whereas
this conflicts with the mode in which Police operate bound to procedural and legal
frameworks.
Despite the disadvantages and challenges, the pros outweigh cons and Social media can become an
excellent platform for enhanced Policing outcomes especially as a tool to spread awareness about
crimes and for fostering crime prevention in local communities. However the key is to identify on
what elements of the media work in a specific context.
Indian Police Departments are gingerly stepping towards social media innovations given the
widespread cynicism and negative influences from public opinion. While use of social media in
Europe and USA has been built over strong foundation of community policing and reputation
of local police in crime solving, best practices in social media adoption need to be tailored to
Indian context. To start with social media can be effectively used for creation of public
awareness programs, communicating public safety and dissemination security messages with
cooperation of both online and offline volunteer community groups.
A case in a point for use of Social media as a key enabler of community policing as practiced in EU
countries is discussed. In Countries, States and jurisdictions where community policing has been
successfully established the use of Social media as a platform blended with Community policing for
awareness on crime prevention is fast emerging as a best practice.
Although critical validation or research have not enabled any standardization of this practice, several
studies on internet behavior and the role of social media in disseminating awareness of crimes and
crime preventions have been made to further streamline this practice. Community Policing is about
a systematic, well-coordinated and joint effort by Police and different public actors to increase
safety in the local communities and society. It requires officers at local level and volunteers to
develop close connections with citizens and residents of local communities to support the Policing
effort. The following are the descriptions of best practices followed in Europe and USA with respect
to Community Policing101.
1. Local police officers in the Netherlands and United Kingdom have been appointed as Social
media officers, who regularly post messages on social media networks on their own behalf,
independent of communications to social media by the PROs/PIOs.
2. The designated Local Police officers post messages about their current operations, safety
remarks when they come across local safety issues, crime awareness news, crime prevention
news, etc.
3. When using social media, the Police officers follow a particular procedure with respect to
usage of language and the tone of the communication. Usually the communication is
characterized by a formal and impersonal tone and relates only to facts from current
operations made from official statements.
4. Boca Raton Police102 use Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to strengthen their Community
Policing program called as VIPER (Visibility, Intelligence, Partnerships, Education and
Resources), clearly mention on Social media that the site is not for reporting crimes or
registering complaints and all the contents of the Facebook page including comments posted
are subject to Public records law and are considered as public information.
5. During a particular occurrence of riots in two different cities, the Police departments
provided 24 hour round the clock updates through tweet-a-thon to provide credible
information on the riot control activities and to reduce the influence of rumors and
speculations. This was first initiated across two continents by the Police Departments of
concerned areas, viz., Greater Manchester Police in UK, Vancouver Police in Canada and
Zurich Police in Switzerland. The tweet-a-thon concept has now become a regular practice
for providing updates by Police on special events and occasions.
6. Hannover Police, Germany have standardized the practice of obtaining useful information
for crime investigation through social media. The search warrants which are generally
published in print media are ineffective and even on social media; audience is indifferent to
participation in reporting crime or incidents. Keeping in view of the above, the Hannover
Police designed Facebook page only for sharing information through well-developed
community support system, only to request the Friends on the page to use regular phone
number to report information. However this approach which was successful in Germany,
where reputation of Police is high and has a strong community policing support might be a
best practice in other contexts.
In addition to use of Social media in Community Policing for spreading awareness and crime
prevention, German Police have also started using social media for crime and criminal investigation.
As the information available in Social media provides rich source of information for crime and
criminal investigation, the Police are adapting to use the power of this medium for specific
investigation purposes.
101
Comparative Police Studies in European Union,
http://www.fit.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/fit/de/documents/COMPOSITE-social-media-best-practice.pdf [Retrieved on
12-07-2013]
102
Social media use by Boca Raton Police, Florida, USA https://twitter.com/bocapolice,
https://www.facebook.com/BocaPolice [Retrieved on 20-07-2013]
While the Police are bound to a structured legal framework both in physical and virtual space with
respect to Crime prevention or crime detection or even undercover operations, there is an imminent
and potential conflict of interest and interference with individual’s rights, freedoms and privacy
when using social media. German Police have developed a legal framework for engaging in crime
investigations through social media networks. The salient features of the framework are as follows.
1. The framework clarifies the relationship between Police operations and commercial
regulations of Social medial service providers and distinguishes different levels of
interference between individual’s personal data and intervention in communication
networks at the outset of the agreement to use social media for investigation purposes
2. The framework also differentiates between different types of inventory and usage data
available and the way it can be used by the Police as per law. The framework specifies the
use of open source information that includes all information that is publicly available.
3. While specialized operations and investigations are conducted by specialists of cybercrime,
intelligence or other units, routine investigations using open source public data is used by
trained professionals for social media based investigations. The German framework focuses
in training of local officers for drawing inferences through social media based investigation
based only on public information within the purview of law.
4. For closed sources of information such as private messages exchanged on social networks, IP
addresses that identify the computers from which users access a social network or email
addresses and phone numbers, the investigation requires the collaboration with social
network operators. European police forces report that the interaction with social media
providers in their respective countries is not complicated as it follows national laws and
orders from prosecution authorities as per law. These are performed as per the routine
investigation by the specialized agencies. Social media service providers like Facebook have
teams which collaborate with law enforcement agencies for specific national and
international law enforcement operations like investigation of crimes on child abuse or child
pornography, etc.
5. The social media adaptation have been experimented and standardized as best practices in
European Union countries. Most of these countries are comparatively less densely
populated and are more developed in terms of infrastructure, civic amenities and quality of
life. The experience of different police forces in this regard shows that social media not only
calls for a different tone and strategy, it also allows police officers to talk about positive
news, emotions, police culture and experiences of daily life. As a result, the public describes
and welcomes the police as a human organization that can be trusted.
6. Further a strong correlation has also been found that social medial adaptation by Police
becomes successful for both crime prevention and support to crime and criminal
investigation when Police have a high reputation within the community and the social media
network is itself blended into the community policing network as identified in various multi-
cultural contexts of Europe.
6.5 Good practices for management of Computer based electronic evidence
Computer-based electronic evidence is subject to the same rules and laws that apply to
documentary evidence. The doctrine of documentary evidence may be explained thus: the onus is
on the prosecution to show to the court that the evidence produced is no more and no less now
than when it was first taken into the possession of police103. Computer-based electronic evidence is
information and data of investigative value that is stored on or transmitted by a computer. As such,
this evidence is latent evidence in the same sense that fingerprints or DNA evidence is latent.
With ever increasing use of mobile devices, laptops, desktops, storage media, internet, multi-
media based entertainment systems and other electronic devices by general public, there is a
need for development of detailed guidelines and good practices for handling electronic based
evidence in crime and criminal investigation. Although IT Act, 2000 and other cyber laws focus
around cybercrimes, there is a need for formulation of guidelines and good practices for
general handling of electronic evidence and specialized teams need to be developed through
training and capacity building measures.
In its natural state, we cannot see what is contained in the physical object that holds our evidence.
Equipment and software are required to make the evidence available. Testimony may be required to
explain the examination and any process limitations. Computer-based electronic evidence is, by its
very nature, fragile. It can be altered, damaged, or destroyed by improper handling or improper
examination. For this reason, special precautions should be taken to document, collect, preserve and
examine this type of evidence. Failure to do so may render it unusable or lead to an inaccurate
conclusion.
The four basic principles which are considered as foundation for good practices across various
components of electronic evidence are as follows.
1. “Principle 1: No action taken by law enforcement agencies or their agents should change
data held on a computer or storage media which may subsequently be relied upon in court.
2. Principle 2: In circumstances where a person finds it necessary to access original data held on
a computer or on storage media, that person must be competent to do so and be able to give
evidence explaining the relevance and the implications of their actions.
3. Principle 3: An audit trail or other record of all processes applied to computer-based
electronic evidence should be created and preserved. An independent third party should be
able to examine those processes and achieve the same result.
4. Principle 4: The person in charge of the investigation (the case officer) has overall
responsibility for ensuring that the law and these principles are adhered to.”
At the outset the above principles have been explained in the guide in detail and Good practices on
the subject have been documented for i) Crime scene take over, ii) Home networks and network
technologies, iii) external consulting of witnesses and forensic contractors, iv) retrieval of video/cctv
evidence, v) evidence recovery, vi) Initial questions, vii) work place welfare, etc. The reader may
refer to the good practices guide for details. However salient features based on the above principles
are given below.
 “The Principle No: 1 on unknowingly tampering and tinkering with data collected as evidence
especially in Operating systems and other programs which frequently alter and add to the
103
ACPO Guide http://www.7safe.com/electronic_evidence/ACPO_guidelines_computer_evidence.pdf [Retrieved on 13-
07-2013]
contents of electronic storage. This may happen automatically without the user necessarily
being aware that the data has been changed.
 In order to comply with the principles of computer-based electronic evidence, wherever
practicable, an image should be made of the entire target device. Partial or selective file
copying may be considered as an alternative in certain circumstances e.g. when the amount
of data to be imaged makes this impracticable. However, Investigators should be careful to
ensure that all relevant evidence is captured if this approach is adopted
 In a minority of cases, it may not be possible to obtain an image using a recognized imaging
device. In these circumstances, it may become necessary for the original machine to be
accessed to recover the evidence. With this in mind, it is essential that a witness, who is
competent to give evidence to a court of law, makes any such access.
 It is essential to display objectivity in a court, as well as the continuity and integrity of
evidence. It is also necessary to demonstrate how evidence has been recovered, showing
each process through which the evidence was obtained. Evidence should be preserved to
such an extent that a third party is able to repeat the same process and arrive at the same
result as that presented to a court104.”
Important features of good practices of network forensics are given below105.
 “Network detecting and monitoring is a specialist area and should not be considered without
expert advice. Consider also the possibility of a computer’s access to remote online storage,
which may physically reside in a foreign jurisdiction. There will be legal issues in relation to
accessing any such material. Legal advice should be sought prior to any access or retrieval.
 An important note to consider during a forensic investigation is the use of clones, whereby a
suspect’s hard drive is cloned and placed into (usually) the original chassis. In the event the
clone was taken from an environment using wireless technology and, when powered up, it is
possible that the data stored on the cloned drive may be accessible to anyone in the vicinity.
This would cause evidential issues and may result in serious ethical consequences. To reduce
these problems, specific technical steps may be taken as per the guide.
 The types of information that may be retrieved are artefacts such as running processes,
network connections (e.g. open network ports & those in a closing state) and data stored in
memory. Memory also often contains useful information such as decrypted applications
(useful if a machine has encryption software installed) or passwords and any code that has
not been saved to disk etc.
 If the power to the device is removed, such artefacts will be lost. If captured before removing
the power, an investigator may have a wealth of information from the machine’s volatile
state, in conjunction with the evidence on the hard disk. By profiling the forensic footprint of
trusted volatile data forensic tools, an investigator will be in a position to understand the
impact of using such tools and will therefore consider this during the investigation and when
presenting evidence.
 A risk assessment must be undertaken at the point of seizure, as per normal guidelines, to
assess whether it is safe and proportional to capture live data which could significantly
influence an investigation.
 Considering a potential Trojan defence, investigators should consider collecting volatile
evidence. Very often, this volatile data can be used to help an investigator support or refute
the presence of an active backdoor.
104
UNDOCS guide, http://www.unodc.org/documents/organized-
crime/UNODC_CCPCJ_EG.4_2013/CYBERCRIME_STUDY_210213.pdf [Retrieved on 13-07-2013]
105
ACPO guide, http://www.forensic-computing.nhs.uk/services/policies.html [Retrieved on 13-07-2013]
 If the power is removed from a running system, any evidence stored in encrypted volumes
will be lost, unless the relevant key is obtained. Also, note that potentially valuable live data
could be lost, leading to damage claims, e.g. corporate data.
 The recommended approach towards seizing a machine whilst preserving network and other
volatile data is to use a sound and predetermined methodology for data collection.”
The above practices are only some of the key practices with respect to management of electronic
evidence for crime and criminal investigation. The reader may further refer to the Good practices
guide and the Cybercrime study for additional information on the best practices, technologies and
processes.
6.6 Citizen portals
Police websites of the individual jurisdiction (County, Town, Commissionerate, Precinct, District, and
Borough) of the Police office catering to the local crime prevention and awareness needs have been
developed across various Police Departments. Most of the websites provide information about the
Department and its units/officers, Information sought by Police from public (Identification of
missing persons, Unidentified dead bodies, kidnaps, etc.), information on crime incidents for
awareness of citizens/residents, necessary services from Police to citizens, Crime stopper/ Providing
tips for crime investigation from citizens/residents, online crime reporting etc. While most of the
websites provide for information based services, a few websites provide for online crime reporting.
The CCTNS solution being implemented in India also provides for a Citizen portal designed for online
crime reporting /incident reporting and provision of General service requests like i) Knowing the
pendency status of applications/petitions, ii) Tenant verification, iii) Passport verification status, iv)
Employee character/ Antecedent verification, v) Permission for processions/events/performances,
vi) Foreigner registration and vii) Protest/Strike request. The internet forms an additional medium
to reach the Police and citizens/residents can register complaints and also seek other proposed
general services.
The websites/portals of the Police Department should be based on best practices and standards and
guidelines prescribed for Government websites106. Given below are the best practices to be followed
for small Police Departments.
1. The website development should be conceptualized by the Department and follow the key
Approach stages namely, a) Plan, b) Program, c) Promote and d) Manage
2. In the Plan stage, the components to display on the web site are decided. Remember brevity
is critical. Online attention spans are short. Determine where the site will be hosted (local
agency, government server, third party server). Begin to collect all of the material planned
for the web site.
3. In the Program stage, the material is converted into an internet readable format. In
accordance with the requirements dictated by the web-hosting server, format the material
for web publishing. For MS Word documents this may be as easy as saving files in hypertext
markup language (HTML) format. Inexpensive web site design software packages are readily
available. See the “Software List” that follows for suggestions of inexpensive and simple
software packages to get you started. Remember, an easily understood navigational
structure between pages is critical. The user should be within three clicks of the page they
want when they arrive at the home page.
4. Basic website contents: Chief Executives welcome and introduction
 Agency structure, mission, and values
 Agency contact information (directory of employees or offices, mailing address, fax,
phone, e-mail)
 Summary of key programs and services
 Answers to frequently asked questions
 Links to other community and law enforcement online resources
5. In the ‘Promote phase” the following activities are taken up. Make the community aware of
the web address. Some agencies put their web address on their patrol cars, business cards,
and letterhead. Links are just as important. Make sure your site is linked to other web sites
your constituents might access (State Association of Chiefs of Police, other local police
departments, community sites, local media, local governments, etc.). Also, register your site
106
IACP best practices guide for website design of small agencies
http://www.theiacp.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=IKC%2bL7Sr2Mw%3d&tabid=392 [ Retrieved on 12-07-2013]
with the main Internet search engines (Yahoo, Google, Hotbox, etc.). A list of search engines
that list web sites free of charge follows. Periodically run a search on the web for your
department and see if it hits on your page.
6. In the Manage phase, the following activities are taken up. Once the website is operational,
keep it fresh. A basic web presence, (a relatively simple web page), will require minimal
maintenance. Identify a single point of contact to coordinate adding and updating online
information (webmaster). More complex web sites will require more time to produce and
manage. While a variety of people may produce material for the web site, one person should
manage the process of publishing updates. Even in smaller agencies, there will be officers
with a keen interest in technology who can serve in this role. Chief executives should
periodically review their web site and verify its usefulness by comparing it to other agencies
web pages.
7. Some of the advanced features which may be used are as follows.
 Anonymous crime stoppers tips

 Local most wanted, stolen property, and missing children info
 Online incident reporting (minor incidents and property damage only accidents)
 E-commerce (purchase copies of reports and local records checks
 Crime mapping and analysis data availability
 Public Surveys
 Know your Police station/Jurisdiction information
8. After an agency has decided to develop a web site, a domain name for the web site must be
chosen. Each web site has an Internet Protocol (IP) address, or a series of numbers that
routes an inquiry to a web page. The Department should reserve for a domain name as per
the guidelines/standards. The issue of domain name squatting should also be considered
and suitable measures should be taken through regulatory authorities as per law.
9. The successful function of Citizen Portals of Police Department is dependent on the

following.
i) The Department should assess its capacities before providing citizen services and
General services to the public.
ii) As provision of citizen services and online incident reporting needs human resources to
adequately deliver the services as per Citizen /public expectations and Service levels,
there is a need for a comprehensive demand assessment, risk assessment and
information security assessment in line with the capacity assessment of the
organizations. It is to be understood that enquiry of incidents and events reported
through website/portal involve unequivocal establishment of complainant’s identity,
which entails a need for resource prioritization for appropriate resource allocation and
also may need to divert and schedule resources as per the demand of the services.
Based on the assessment demand planning should also be made for augmenting
resources of the Department to cater to requirements of provision of staff for enquiring
the online/crime and incidents in addition to the general complaints received through
emergency calls reported on the telephones.
iii) Suitable measures and safeguards to be published on the website for online crime and
incident reporting.
iv) Suitable warnings, caveats and guidelines to be provided to the public for preventing
misuse of online crime/incident reporting.
v) Information security to be enabled throughout the ICT solution of the Department to

reduce risks of addressed threats/vulnerabilities, hacking, spamming and other security
related issues.
vi) Various cities/Departments and States/countries have different approaches for

providing online crime reporting services to public. Most of the Departments ask for
reporting an emergency or a crime in progress through Emergency Phone number of the
Department only. The Department also provides Non-emergency phone numbers also
as another medium to report and register an incident/ complaint. For online crime
reporting through website forms the Departments in general encourage to submit only
minor incidents of non-emergency in nature. For example the Sacramento Police
website lists that online crime reporting through portal cannot be made if the crime falls
under the following categories and the complainant must call the emergency number107.
 Violent Crime (personal assault, kidnapping, robbery)

 Gun theft
 Hate Crime
 Sex Crime (rape or sexual assault)
 Stolen Vehicle (theft of a vehicle, trailer, motorcycle)
 Lost/Stolen License Plate
 Domestic Violence
 Assault and Battery resulting in serious injuries (to include injuries requiring
hospitalization or medical treatment).
 Traffic Accidents involving serious injuries, DUIs, or unlicensed drivers unless all
parties have left the scene.
The London Metropolitan Police clearly mention when to use the portal services and when not to
use them and provide the following guidance108.
 The Online Crime / Incident Reporting service requires cookies to be enabled in your
browser
 Personal information (such as name and address) submitted to this website will only
be used for policing purposes. This complies with the Data Protection Act 1998,
details of which can be found at www.dpr.gov.uk.
 If you are reporting the theft of a mobile phone, you will need to have your IMEI
number to hand.
The Los Angeles Police Department provides use and abuse guidelines and series of telephone
hotlines for crime reporting109 and also provides for Solve a Crime feature for the public. The
Chicago Police Department which works on Clearpath platform with a strong community policing
107
Sacramento Police website http://www.sacpd.org/reports/fileonline/ [Retrieved on 25-07-2013]
108
London Met Police website, https://online.met.police.uk/[Retrieved on 25-07-2013]
109
Los Angeles Police Department http://www.lapdonline.org/report_a_crime[Retrieved on 25-07-2013]
foundation provides for a comprehensive citizen portal with online crime reporting function with
safeguards and cautions for reporting non-emergency crimes110.
Websites and Portals of the Police Departments are the public face of the Police and law
enforcement on the internet. Currently many of the Police websites provide for several
information services, downloadable forms and for citizen services with respect to checking
the pendency of applications/ cases, etc. The CCTNS portal services further offer online
incident reporting and a host of other services to citizens such as
Passport/tenant/antecedent/domestic help/etc. verifications, permissions for processions,
strikes, etc.
The best practices as identified in the international context relevant to Indian context, is to
use the portal for non-emergency purposes only given the positioning of Dial 100 and other
emergency channels. Further a comprehensive assessment of the Portal services offering by
the Police Department in line with its capacities in terms of resource scheduling and
deployment and successful compliance to service levels and citizen charter may also be
considered before rollout of such services.
110
Chicago Police website https://portal.chicagopolice.org/portal/page/portal/ClearPath/To%20Police1 [Retrieved on 25-
07-2013]
6.7 Intelligence Led Policing (ILP)
Intelligence Led Policing (ILP) is a new concept developed based on best practices and
recommendations of various reform agenda. It is being actively promoted as a new form of policing
which aligns with the needs of 21st century and the requirements of fast urbanization, rapid
adjustments to new technologies, changing crime landscape and especially tackling terrorism and
various new forms of social disorder evolving in the societies.
Around 1980, a significant conceptual shift began occurring, building on the concept of empirical
experimentation, toward community-based policing. Particularly characteristic of this approach to
police service delivery was the use of the scientific method to test different applications and
derivatives of these concepts. While there was initially a great deal of resistance in the policing
community, the research and experiences of agencies trying the concepts soon demonstrated the
value of this paradigm shift. The design and development of COMPSTAT program spearheaded by
New York City Police Department introduced the era of smart policing through use of Information
Technologies in conjunction with streamlining of crime monitoring and reporting processes over the
foundation of experiments in community policing.
Another concept of Policing called as Problem Oriented Policing which also is a key step in the
evolution of Policing concepts worth mentioning in this context is defined here. Problem oriented
Policing is an approach to policing in which discrete pieces of police business/functions (each
consisting of a cluster of similar incidents, whether crime or acts of disorder, that the police are
expected to handle) are subject to microscopic examination (drawing on the especially honed skills
of crime analysts and the accumulated experience of operating field personnel) in hopes that what is
freshly learned about each problem will lead to discovering a new and more effective strategy for
dealing with it111.
Stimulated by the new law enforcement role in intelligence as a result of the 9/11 attacks, the
concept of ILP emerged in the United States. With roots in the British National Intelligence Model,
American ILP relies on analytically understanding multijurisdictional crime threats, developing a
pathway toward solving the crime problems, and relying on proactive information sharing, both
within the agency and externally with other law enforcement agencies, to maximize the number of
law enforcement personnel who may identify indicators of threats and intervene. The lessons
learned from police research, Problem oriented Policing, Community policing, and COMPSTAT
provided important insight into shaping up of the American ILP.
The “Guidelines of Domestic preparedness to Homeland security” requirements describe the role of
Community policing in the overall intelligence processes. ILP shares the following community
policing concepts in its design.
 Information management
 Two way communication
 Scientific data analysis
 Problem solving
Before ILP concept and best practices are explained, the concept of “intelligence” and the process of
intelligence cycle are explained below.
111
Centre for Problem oriented Policing website http://www.popcenter.org
Traditionally Intelligence has been a separate specialized function of the State dealt by specialist
agency. Although the words “intelligence” and “information” are used synonymously with respect
to their collection and sharing across agencies and field units, a clear distinction between “collected
information” and “produced intelligence” lies in the word “ analysis”. “Intelligence” is therefore
produced and generated after “analysis” of systematically collected and gathered information and
for performing a rigorous analysis for generation of meaningful and usable intelligence, trained
Analysts, technologies and tools are essential. Intelligence is produced and utilized for both strategic
and tactical dimensions.
While strategic intelligence deals with “big picture” issues such as planning and manpower
allocation, tactical intelligence focuses on providing inputs to direct immediate action, consolidating
evidences and guiding operations. Intelligence traditionally involves the following five phases which
now become the key component in ILP in addition to the processes which integrate the Intelligence
components to Policing.
a. Collection/Gathering of Intelligence: Traditionally the focus of Intelligence has been on gathering

the data through the following methods.
 Physical surveillance
 Video surveillance
 Electronic surveillance
 Confidential informants
 Undercover operators
 Media/ Internet reports
 Public records
However, ICTs have enhanced the capabilities of the above functions and several additional
sources and platforms have come into existence today based like regional and national
Intelligence networks, Crime records databases, Intelligence information exchanges and
gateways, etc.
b. Processing/Collation:
With respect to processing and collation, sophisticated databases with data and text mining are
available today, for meeting the needs of ILP. It is also to be noted that intelligence placed in an
ICT Intelligence system/solution should meet the standard of relevance to the criminal activity
associated with the informants as per the standard 28 CFR part 23.20.a.
c. Analysis:
Analysis converts “Information” into “Intelligence”. Analysis is a process of simply deriving

meaning from the data. ICTs play a very important role in performing the function of analysis,
which needs abundant computing power and human judgment to generate meaning from data.
Some of the commonly used analysis methodologies are given below
 Crime analysis: Crime pattern analysis, geographic analysis, Locational analysis, Context
analysis, GIS based crime maps, Hotspots, time-series analysis, frequency-distribution
analysis, behavioral analysis, and statistical analysis.
 Investigative (evidential) analysis: Network analysis; telephone record analysis; event,
commodity, and activity-flow analysis; timeline analysis; visual investigative analysis; bank
record analysis; net worth analysis; business record analysis; content analysis; post seizure
analysis; case analysis; and conversation analysis.
 Strategic analysis: Threat assessments, premontories, vulnerability assessments, risk
assessments, estimates, general assessments, warnings, problem profiles, target profiles,
and strategic targeting.
Several parametric and non-parametric statistical methods, mathematical models and algorithms
are used for analysis of information for critical intelligence to be disseminated to law enforcement
agencies.
d. Dissemination
The process of ILP also includes the stages of Dissemination of intelligence to the targeted units
for action or consideration.
e. Reevaluation of Intelligence is a key step in the Intelligence cycle which provides a feedback on
the intelligence itself for generation of more improved intelligence.
Information Technology plays a pivotal role at each of the steps of the intelligence cycle explained
above right from Information collection stages to the reevaluation and assessment of the
intelligence program/operation.
One of the key ICT components of ILP is the Fusion Centers. The Fusion Centers which have been
created in USA as collaborative multi-agency centres as a part of implementing Recommendations
of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007112, play a very important role in enabling ILP through
providing both intelligence and information to patrol officers, detectives, management and other
participating personnel and agencies for efficient and effective crime and criminal investigation.
Thus ILP, which is about embedding the intelligence dimension both into crime investigation and
law enforcement, provides the Police with facts and alternatives for well prepared and informed
decisions both at strategic and tactical level.
With all pervasive cybercrime and unauthorized intrusion into networks and IT infrastructure, it is
essential to build extra ordinary security into ILP and intelligence networks. The significant growth
of wireless communications and peripheral connectivity (Blue Tooth®) has further aggravated the
problem.
Some of the general good practices to be considered for Information Technology Management
under ILP paradigm as per data security standards of 28 CFR Part 23 (US Standard) is as follows.
a. Manual Assurance of Data Handling: Virtually all data is handled manually at some point.
There must be security standards and quality control of data that is entered into the
system.
b. Physical Security: There must be effective measures in place to ensure the security of the
facility housing computer(s), servers, and any other related hardware ( e.g., PDAs) and
peripherals (e.g., printers) that have access to the system.
c. Operations Security: Processes for quality control of personnel who are system
operators/managers as well as security monitoring of people who have access to the
secure area where computers and servers are housed. This includes maintenance and
custodial personal, clerical personnel, and others who may have access to the secure area.
112
Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007.
d. Management-Initiated Controls: This includes the following
i. Management oversight of system operations.

ii. Administrative policy for computer access and use.
iii. Fair use policies if a public website is provided.
iv. Establishment of data security management policies.
v. Establishing data classification protocols for control and access.
e. Computer System Control: Strict access to the system should be controlled by:
i. Authorization of personnel. Defining policies and standards as to who may

have access to the system, for what purposes access is granted, and defined
standards of acceptable use of the system.
ii. Software access control: Beyond standard user name and password
controls, and all the well-known security precautions associated with these,
the system should be protected by a Virtual Private Network (VPN) for
access control by authorized users.
iii. System protection and inoculation. All networked systems should have a
multistage firewall and constantly updated virus definitions.
f. Encryption for wireless devices: Network encryption should be enabled if wireless devices
are used with an intelligence records system or intelligence-related communications.
g. Access audit controls: A real-time auditing system should monitor all accesses to the
system, user identification, and the activity during the user period, length of time, and the
IP number of the computer accessing the system.
h. Control of remote storage media: Policies need to be established and technological
controls instituted to monitor the use and control of restricted data related to remote
storage media (e.g., disks, CDs, thumb drives, etc.).
i. On the issue of compatibility, it is critical that the adoption of justice information exchange
standards take into account emerging technologies which serve as the basis for
information exchange in a broad spectrum of industry sectors113. The Global Justice
Information Sharing Initiative data exchange standards, provides for consistent
definitions, protocols, and data standards – including the XML standard for IPs – to ensure
system compatibility, interoperability, and, consequently, better information sharing in an
environment of increased connectivity and security risks114.
113
Technology Considerations in the Development of Integrated Justice Data Exchange Standards. A report of the Global
Justice Information Sharing Initiative, http://it.ojp.gov/technology/files/IJIS-Standards.pdf. [Retrieved on 19-07-2013]
114
A Guide for Applying Information Technology to Law Enforcement. Washington, DC: Office of Science and Technology,
National Institute of Justice. Available at: http://www.nlectc.org/pdffiles/infotechguide.pdf [Retrieved on 19-07-2013]
ILP is a Police management philosophy built over best practice concepts and principles of
Community Policing, COMPSTAT model and various guidelines of the Department of Homeland
security. The concept itself originated on the British model aimed at embedding intelligence as a
regular function of law enforcement and policing rather an appended function of the Police
organization. In Indian context, the Police reforms and recommendations of various committees
advocate community participation. With advent of nation-wide initiatives like CCTNS and
specialized solutions like GIS based Crime Analytics, NATGRID, etc., the direction for ILP may be
considered by the leadership of various Police organizations.
Thus the use of ICTs and other relevant technologies plays a key role in the process to enable
efficient collection and analysis of information for producing credible intelligence as per the needs
to strengthen the Policing effort through new approaches such as ILP. ILP as the underlying
philosophy enables strategic integration of intelligence with the overall mission of the Police and
law enforcement organization.
The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), USA under its Targeting Violent Crime Initiative (TVCI)
engaged in a comprehensive assessment of several law enforcement agencies within USA and
identified best practice cases, wherein ILP principles were extensively used. Although the agencies
exhibited differing operational practices and organizational styles, it quickly became apparent
that the shared following certain commonalities that were critical to their success.
 Command commitment
 Problem clarity
 Active collaboration
 Effective intelligence
 Information sharing
 Clearly defined goals
 Results-oriented tactics and strategies
 Holistic investigations
 Officer accountability
 Continuous assessment
It was observed that implementing ILP substantially enhanced the ability of high-performing
agencies to achieve success under TVCI. ILP was implemented in varying degrees within the
identified agencies and was often complemented by other policing practices, such as community
policing, problem solving, and CompStat based on robust data collection and analysis
The success of these programs also reflects the following principles of BJA.
 Emphasizing local control
 Building relationships in the field
 Developing collaborations and partnerships
 Promoting capacity building through planning
 Encouraging innovation
Given below are four best practice case studies identified under the BJA study based on the
principles of ILP. All the case studies presented below have been reproduced from the BJA report.
They reflect e-Governance as a holistic concept of performance improvement within the Police
organization rather than an appended function of the Department aimed at using Information and
communication technologies. The readers may further refer to additional case studies on ILP from
the BJA report115.
115
BJA report, https://www.bja.gov/Publications/ReducingCrimeThroughILP.pdf [ Retrieved on 1-08-2013 ]
Best practice case#1 : Rapid Response, Austin, Texas
The Problem:
Traditional police responses to these emerging crimes did not appear to be stemming the crime
trends. Complicating the police response was the growing economic crisis, which was both
contributing to new crimes and limiting the police department’s traditional approach to crime
control.
The Plan:
“Initial self-assessments revealed that COMPSTAT, community policing, and intelligence-led policing
(ILP) were critical tools for collecting and managing information to better understand crime and
develop effective responses. Critical to this process was the role of analysts. Having previously
recognized the importance of the analyst role, the Austin Police Department maintains a high level of
analyst staffing.
Strategic thinking was initiated to develop operational responses in the context of defined time
intervals designed to meet the functional responsibilities of each level within the department.
Specifically, time frames were developed by the Austin Police Department (Tactical time frame—4
hours / Operational time frame—24 hours /Strategic time frame—28 days). The defined time
intervals provide a consistent framework for analysis of crime problems and development of
responses.
Commanders assessed crime threats on a daily basis and developed operational responses for trends
that emerge, including redeployment of personnel. At the administrative level, strategic assessments
are made on a monthly basis to determine department-wide needs to refocus and reallocate
resources to address persistent crime trends. Facilitating this process, a fusion center is being
designed to build a strong communications pipeline to the watch commanders to meet the tactical
time frame.”
Action taken/Operations: As part of this process, the department developed Rapid Response Teams
(RRT), which is facilitated by the Tactical Lieutenant working with Crime analysts in each Bureau. The
RRT is a leadership cadre at the regional level (not operational team) that develops plans and tactics
for responding to problems. The department realigned patrol bureaus and beats around activity and
call/problem demands, rather than geography. This provided police coverage where it was needed
while facilitating the analytic process. In addition, decisions on police responses were assigned in the
organization to the lieutenant level.
The Outcome: An overall goal in these processes is to develop a method to identify the 20 percent of
the population that causes 80 percent of the crime problems. The Austin Police Department project is
still being refined; however, successes have been achieved in reducing violent crime as well as
burglaries and other repetitive offenses. For example, there was a 15 percent reduction in burglary of
vehicles in 2010.
Summary: “The primary elements of the strategy were the use of actionable intelligence, agency
restructuring around actual demand, intense analytic capabilities, and accountability at all levels of
the organization. Developing the organizational flexibility to quickly identify problems as they
develop and shift resources to attack the problems is the key to the Austin Police Department
strategy. In addition to COMPSTAT, Crime Analytics solutions, Records Management System (RMS) at
Police stations and various sophisticated Applications at the Fusion Centres, e-Governance has played
a key role in resource scheduling/allocation for deployment of Rapid Response teams as a part of
ILP.”
Table 4: Best practice case#1: Rapid Response, Austin, Texas
Best practice case#2 : Evan’s county, Georgia- ILP in rural setting
The Problem: The Evan’s county Sheriff’s office had four Municipalities (4 Police stations) with drug
related crimes being an important challenge. The multi-jurisdictional drug task force and tri-circuit
drug task force also operated from the County office. Lack of a good mechanism or process for
effective interagency communication and coordination across the municipalities was the main
problem identified as a part of ILP.
The Plan:
“The county office devised a plan under ILP by integrating process improvement and e-Governance
for solving the problem. The following are the key components of the plan.
 Implementing ILP as a business model for identifying crime trends and offenders, as well as a
mechanism to develop operational responses to the crimes.
 Structuring a privacy policy and intelligence guidelines as required by 28 CFR Part 23 with
clear procedures for implementation and training for all personnel.
 Aggressive information gathering, specific analysis, and structured classifications for mass
“real-time” communication paths for “actionable intelligence dissemination” to all
stakeholders in the area of operations. “
Action taken/Operations: “ A secure office space was created as Intelligence centre of the county in
the County office. An intelligence Analyst was hired with BJA funds to analyze the crime data and
trends generated through COMPSTAT and other ICT applications. All the officers across the county
were provided with Blackberry smartphones for receipt of crime and criminal information. Typical to
a rural setting with limited staff and communications infrastructure, a key problem which was
identified was lack of coordination across various jurisdictions within county with respect to response
to crimes. The following intelligence products were developed as a combination of e-Governance and
Business process improvement.
1. E-Roll Call—the analyst compiles a list of all calls received by each department throughout
the night, along with a short narrative, and then e-mails the document to all officers.
2. Patrol Alerts—the analyst compiles a document listing any corroborated criminal intelligence
within the jurisdictions and e-mails the document to all officers. All officers have received 28
CFR Part 23 training and have read and signed the Evans County Sheriff’s Office Privacy
Policy.
3. BOLOs—Wanted persons who have pending warrants.
4. Open Case Alert—A method of communicating to deputies the “need-to-know” facts of cases
under investigation by detectives.
5. Open Source Bulletins—sent to all public and private sector partners to either prevent or
disrupt crime.
6. Beyond these products, an all-hazards report is issued to all officers when inclement
weather, dangerous incidents, or any potential public safety issue arises.”
The Outcome:
“It was learned through analysis that primary crimes that were occurring throughout the county (and
in adjoining counties) included theft of copper wire and associated parts from irrigation systems
(these are very expensive thefts), burglaries, drugs (notably marijuana and crack), and domestic
violence. There was also a growing juvenile violence problem that was akin to gang violence.
Some of the notable results are:
 Crimes that were previously treated as separate offenses have been linked through
information sharing and analysis.
 The relationship with the community has strengthened, and law enforcement has received
more information and tips, which are integrated for analysis.
 Crimes have been discovered that were previously unreported.
 New offenders and repeat offenders have been identified, documented, and shared among
all participating agencies.
 Deputies and municipal officers are more efficient because their efforts are more directed
based on the threat information provided by the analyst.
 Officer safety has increased by making officers aware of threats. “
Summary:
 “Evans County, Georgia, clearly demonstrated that ILP has applications beyond terrorism and
violence and can include crimes against property as well, which was a primary concern in
Evans County.
 The National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan recommends that every law enforcement
agency, regardless of size, develop an intelligence capacity. The Evans County Sheriff’s Office
took this recommendation to heart and demonstrated that ILP could be effectively
implemented in a small, rural law enforcement agency.
 The value of having an analytic capability was clearly demonstrated. Perhaps one of the most
profound pieces of evidence of this is the Sheriff’s statement that, if necessary, he would
eliminate a deputy’s position in order to retain the analyst.
 New methods and approaches to crime control (in this case via ILP) can gain the support of
even the most cynical employees if the initiative works and makes the work of the officers
more efficient and effective. “
Table 5: Best practice case#2: Evan’s county, Georgia- ILP in rural setting
Best practice case#3 : Safe streets initiative, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

“The Problem: Milwaukee has witnessed increased violence related to gang activity. Over the past
decade, the area has been plagued with homicides, aggravated assaults, and drive-by shootings, as
well as an array of other violent crimes.
Compounding the problem were limited technical and policy processes for effective information
sharing. Information existed, but the agency information infrastructure either did not get actionable
intelligence to the right people or did not get it there in a timely manner. While relationships
between adjacent jurisdictions were good, collaboration and information sharing were inconsistent.”
The Plan: “After a thorough assessment of the problem, three goals were established.
 Reduce homicides and shootings through continual assessment.
 Reduce violence and gang crime through enhanced intelligence-led policing.
 Enhance public safety through hot-spot enforcement.
To accomplish these goals, the Milwaukee Police Department identified four key components of the
Safe Streets Initiative. The components identified and implemented were:
 Adapting an intelligence-led policing model to focus information collection, analysis, and
dissemination.
 Utilizing the Wisconsin Justice Information Sharing (WJIS) network to serve as a secure
platform for the ILP model.
 Implementing the Milwaukee Homicide Review initiative to provide in-depth analysis of
homicides. This is a contracted service that provides analytical assessment of all homicides
occurring in Milwaukee. The goal of this service is to provide a better understanding of the
nature of homicide and firearm violence through strategic problem analysis
 Using overtime enforcement to provide added personnel to areas identified as “hot spots.”
Action taken/Operations:
“Specific activities related to these components included crime analysis-driven decision making,
regular CompStat meetings, information sharing, and strategy development. The Milwaukee Police
Department created and deployed two Neighborhood Task Forces (NTFs).
Each NTF mirrored a fully staffed district with its own uniformed patrol, investigators, and support.
After thorough crime analysis from COMPSTAT data, a connection between auto theft and other
criminal activity was established. By evaluating the auto theft patterns, the Milwaukee Police
Department identified automobiles most at risk by type, geographic area, and time of day.
Possessing this information, the police department instituted an aggressive traffic enforcement
program targeting at-risk vehicles.
Traffic stops per month increased from an average of 1,000 stops to 10,000 stops. This occurred with
no increase in the number of citations issued and with no change in the number of citizen
complaints.”
The Outcome:
The success rate was phenomenal. Milwaukee saw a major reduction in crime, with a remarkable 60
percent drop in murders of young African-American males, the most at-risk group in the United
States.
Summary:
“Key features of the ILP component of the Milwaukee Safe Streets Initiative included expanded
information-gathering capabilities and enhanced analytic capabilities, with the purpose of timely
dissemination of actionable intelligence.
Officer accountability was a large part of the plan, with officers being tasked to aggressively target
at-risk vehicles and proactively seek to remove weapons from the streets of Milwaukee.
There was a focused effort to improve the relationships between the police department and the
public. The Milwaukee Police Department turned good relationships into true partnerships, and as
much as any other innovation, this was a key to its success.”
Table 6: Best practice case#3: Safe streets initiative, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Best practice case#4 : Gangs as criminal enterprises, Palm Beach County, Florida, USA
“The Problem: Beset with a proliferation of gangs, Palm Beach County, Florida, was inundated by an
increase in homicides and violent crimes. The problem was compounded by the fact that many local
law enforcement administrators were unwilling to acknowledge a gang problem in their jurisdiction.
Agency administrators began to realize that they could no longer deny the reality of gangs and that,
more important, this was not a battle which individual agencies could fight alone and there is a need
to change the approach and attitudes and procedures of the Police given the increasing number of
gang attacks on them.”
The Plan: “ The core of the strategy centered on the development of the multiagency Violent Crimes
Task Force (VCTF). The VCTF is an elite unit made up of area officers who are committed to the
philosophy of the unit and willing to expend the time and energy needed to make the plan work.
Recognizing that an aggressive law enforcement unit, such as this task force, has the potential for
poor public relations, agency administrators instituted a three-tiered management approach aimed
at maintaining the focus in a manner acceptable to the community. This included a comprehensive
training program that all task force members were required to complete prior to becoming a task
force member, a tight chain of command to maintain unit integrity and focus, and close supervision
that left no room for free-lance law enforcement with the use of ICT solutions. A high-energy unit
employing strategies and tactics based on actionable intelligence and applying constant pressure on
key gang members was the foundation of the plan. The core of the VCTF employed six components as
mentioned below.”
Action taken/Operations:
a. “Multiagency investigative efforts—In particular, a partnership with the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) served an important role for investigating and prosecuting
offenders on gun law violations.
b. Intelligence—Intelligence, analysis, and data sharing were critical, particularly through the
“Virtual Fusion Center,” which is essentially a single SharePoint portal focused on South Florida
crime issues and includes participation by state, local, and federal law enforcement. The Fusion
Centre enables integration capabilities and operation of multi-agency collaboration with
information from several databases of many Departmental functions and relevant data from
external agencies including Narcotics, Economic offences, Bank transactions, etc.
c. Community policing—Community-policing initiatives were a critical element of the process. The
need for two-way communication between law enforcement and the community was clear in
order for law enforcement to build rapport and trust with residents and obtain as much
information as possible about offenders and crimes.
d. Law enforcement met consistently with community members to educate them about crime trends
and to keep the channels of communication open. Going beyond crime-related discussions, the
Sheriff’s office also engaged the community in non-crime-related activities. Key among these was
the Police Athletic League (PAL), which provides positive interaction between law enforcement
and the area youths.
e. Suppression/enforcement—as information is developed about criminals and threats via the
multiagency teams, intelligence, and community input, aggressive enforcement actions are used
to arrest offenders. “Aggressive” means full enforcement of the law; however, arrests are made
by strategically removing offenders from neighborhoods rather than using techniques such as
street sweeps.
f. Prosecution—the prosecutor is a full partner in this task force. Providing legal advice as well as
initiating prosecutions with the objective of obtaining maximum sentences for hard-core gang
members, the prosecutor’s office is a vital component of the overall plan. “
The Outcome:
“The initiative required significant re-socialization of all partner personnel, changes in policy, and
both patience and commitment to make the plan work effectively. The results from initial
assessments in Palm Beach County indicate success. Thus far, seven violent criminal gangs have been
dismantled, with their members serving lengthy prison sentences. Most noteworthy, over a four-year
period, gang-related homicides dropped by 50 percent.”
Summary:
“Facing rising gang violence, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office initiated the multiagency Violent
Crimes Task Force. This team is composed of officers from surrounding state, local, and federal law
enforcement agencies. The task force is highly trained and closely supervised. Using actionable
intelligence and working in conjunction with the prosecutor’s office, the task force targeted violent
gang members using every available legal tool, including the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organizations) Act.”
Table 7: Best practice case#4: Gangs as criminal enterprises, Palm Beach County, Florida, USA
6.8 COMPSTAT
The 1980’s through the early 1990’s was a period for New York City (NYC) of crime spiraling out of
control. Violent crime, including Murder and Robbery was increasing to record setting numbers.
Businesses were leaving New York and tourism was down. Under Mayor Dinkins and Police
Commissioner Lee Brown, the “Safe Streets – Safe Cities “legislation was passed to increase the size
of NYPD by approximately 5,000 police officers to implement Community Policing in NYC. During the
2 years that this new strategy was in effect, the beefed up Department was able to achieve crime
reductions of 1% and 2% respectively, which was considered a victory then.
After the elections, the new mayor, Rudy Giuliani, hired Police Commissioner William Bratton, who
predicted double digit crime reductions, something that never happened during the history of
modern policing in NYC116. Leading from the front, the Police Commissioner William Bratton used to
regularly address the Department personnel, stating that one day, each one of them would look
back on as precinct commanders and officers and take pride in how they turned NYC around and
create history by reducing crime like it never had been done before. He made everyone believe that
COMPSTAT was the engine that drove the crime reduction by not being the answer to NYC’s crime
problems but a platform and a forum for finding and demanding the answers and providing
actionable solutions to the problems.
Regular COMPSTAT meetings were conducted for introduction of innovative crime strategies and
sharing actionable information for action. All members of the Department were made to realize
their critical roles and their small victories start a cascading effect to major crime reductions and
organization of the goals of the NYPD. Built on a foundation of ICT solution which enables effective
use of crime statistics and information, COMPSTAT is a process, a management philosophy, a forum
and a system of accountability and was not a ICT solution or a computer system or software package
in its original form. Through an evolutionary process, however, some commercial entities have
created packages including computer systems, software, mobile devices, and other implements
collectively assembled under the brand titled as CompStat. Currently it is also being used by several
Police Departments like Washington DC, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc.
The COMPSTAT program was about weekly coordination meetings with all the units to monitor the
reduction of crime in various precinct jurisdictions of the city and the twice-a–week crime control
strategy meetings at the command and control centre by the leadership of NYC Police. Among the
Command and Control Center's high-tech capabilities is its computerized "pin mapping" which
displays crime, arrest and quality of life data in a host of visual formats including comparative charts,
graphs and tables over a GIS foundation.
These meetings which were core of the COMPSTAT program were enabled by the Weekly crime
reports generated through the COMPSTAT software system. The reports were based on detailed
statistical analysis and interpretation by trained analysts and experts with an underlying locational
and geographical context provided to each of the inferences on Geographical Information System
(GIS) foundation. Visual presentations in the form of graphs, Hotspots on geographical maps,
illustrations, trends shown as graphical patterns were key elements of these Crime reports117118. The
reports are also shared with the Mayor and city administration and the meetings involved
participation of all the relevant external and internal stakeholders. The crime data collected from all
the precincts is analyzed across various dimensions and parameters on a week to date, month to
116
COMPSTAT, http://www.worldwidelawenforcement.com/docs/COMPSTAT%20article.pdf [Retrieved on 15-07-2013]
117
What is COMPSTAT, http://www.compstat.umd.edu/what_is_cs.php, [ Retrieved on 20-07-2013]
118
SFPD, COMPSTAT reports, http://sf-police.org/index.aspx?page=3255
date and year to date basis with comparisons to previous month and year’s activity along with crime
trends, deviations, anomalies and other exceptions/assumptions119.
Local crime and socio-economic/cultural conditions and quality of life conditions are also factored
into the analysis to generate the summaries on registration of complaints, arrest activity,
patrol/beats, investigation and various other performance indicators to be presented in the weekly
report. The CompStat process is guided by the four following best practice principles which stand as
a paradigm for e-Governance in Police and Law enforcement120.
1. “Accurate and timely intelligence (i.e., “Know what is happening”)121: In this context, crime
intelligence relies on data primarily from official sources, such as calls for service, crime, and
arrest data. This data should be accurate and available as close to real-time as possible. This
crime and disorder data is used to produce crime maps, trends, and other analysis products.
Subsequently, command staff uses these information products to identify crime problems to
be addressed.
2. Effective tactics (i.e., “Have a plan.”)122: Relying on past successes and appropriate
resources, command staff and officers plan tactics that will respond fully to the identified
problem. These tactics may include law enforcement, government, and community partners
at the local, state, and federal levels. A CompStat meeting provides a collective process for
developing tactics as well as accountability for developing these tactics.
3. Rapid deployment (i.e., “Do it quickly.”) 123: Contrary to the reactive policing model, the
CompStat model strives to deploy resources to where there is a crime problem now, as a
means of heading off the problem before it continues or escalates. As such, the tactics should
be deployed in a timely manner.
4. Relentless follow-up and assessment (i.e., “If it works, do more. If not, do something
else.”)124: The CompStat meeting provides the forum to “check-in” on the success of current
and past strategies in addressing identified problems. Problem-focused strategies are
normally judged a success by a reduction in or absence of the initial crime problem. This
success or lack thereof provides knowledge of how to improve current and future planning
and deployment of resources.”
119
NYC COMPSTAT report, http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cscity.pdf
120
McDonald, P.P. (2002). Managing police operations: Implementing the New York Crime Control Model – CompStat.
Stamford, CT: Wadsworth. [ Retrieved on 20-07-2013]
121
Go down, J. (August 2009). The CompStat process: Four principles for managing crime reduction. The Police Chief, 76
(8). [ Retrieved on 20-07-2013]
122
Ibid
123
Ibid
124
Ibid
COMPSTAT therefore is considered as a comprehensive and interactive management philosophy for
Police management which effectively uses ICT solutions for realization of Policing outcomes. In later
period one of the sharp criticisms on COMPSTAT system was pressure from leadership to their sub-
ordinates for low reporting of crimes into the Record management systems to artificially keep the
crime rate low125.The information flowchart based on COMPSTAT assessment is provided below126.
Figure 26: “COMPSTAT Assessment – Information Flow Chart”
The following are the some of the key functionalities of the COMPSTAT software a) data acquisition
and data management, b) geocoding, c) crime mapping and analysis, d) Internet mapping, e)
redistricting, f) emergency management, g) routing software, and others, including products from
each of the following specialized areas, i) audio-visual mapping, ii) cartography, iii) data mining, iv)
drawing/design, v) GIS applications development, vi) geospatial imaging, vii) geographic profiling,
viii) incident tracking/mapping, ix) intelligence analysis, x) investigative analysis, xi)resource
allocation, records management, xii)spatial data analysis, xiii) spatial information systems.
125
http://www.nycpba.org/publications/mag-04-summer/compstat.html [ retrieved on 16-07-2013]
126
http://www.goccp.maryland.gov/msac/graphics/compstat-flow-chart.gif [ retrieved on 16-07-2013]
COMPSTAT as a management philosophy and a bouquet of best practices has been well-
acknowledged around the world and has been part of management research and e-Government
case studies. The principles of i) Accurate, timely and actionable intelligence, ii) effective tactics,
iii) Rapid deployment with flexibility in organizational processes and iv) relentless follow up and
monitoring towards outcomes have been considered as best practice principles and concepts
which helped design new paradigms like Intelligence Led Policing. COMPSTAT therefore signifies
an entire process model built around a technology model and vice versa, aimed at specific
objectives and outcomes of crime investigation and crime prevention. In an Indian context, this
best practice model needs to evolve along with e-Governance in Police and Law enforcement
sector; although already such focused interventions are being undertaken in a few
Departments/Commissionerates.
Thus COMPSTAT aligned important components of management and information together as a

system of accountability of Government to the public and elected representatives. The national
assessment of COMPSTAT program by US Department of Justice (USDoJ) has identified seven key
elements in the strategic framework of COMPSTAT127.
1) “Mission clarification in demonstrating management’s commitment towards realization of

public service delivery goals
2) Geographical organization of organizational command aligned to a strong command and
control structure
3) Data-driven analysis of problems and assessment of Department’s problem solving efforts
based on a sound ICT solution for generation of comprehensive crime statistics and reports
based on relevant performance indicators.
4) Effective problem solving tactics based on analytics with alternatives for best possible
prospects of success.
5) Organizational flexibility for changing routines for need based mobilization of resources
6) Internal accountability with operational commanders held responsible for accomplishing
measurable results.
7) External accountability both with respect to accountability to key constituents of criminal
justice system and Government (Courts, Prosecution, Correctional agencies/Jails, etc.) and
the local administration and general public.”
Another interpretation of COMPSTAT based policing is the Stratified Model of Problem Solving,
Analysis, and Accountability developed as an innovative approach to organizational police
management. This approach not only seeks to improve upon CompStat by incorporating the best
practices of CompStat, but also those of traditional policing and other police innovations—
hotspots policing, problem-oriented policing, and intelligence-led policing.
The Stratified Model outlines a structure for institutionalizing crime reduction strategies into the
day-to-day practices of the police organization that provides a foundation for holding personnel
accountable within a structure of meetings. Quite simply, the Stratified Model significantly
improves upon the original CompStat organizational model by incorporating innovative and
evidence-based police practices and by more fully specifying the CompStat framework128129. The
127
COMPSTAT and organizational change, a National Assessment, https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/222322.pdf [
Retrieved on 20-07-2013]
128
What is COMPSTAT, http://www.compstat.umd.edu/what_is_cs.php, [ Retrieved on 20-07-2013]
below illustration sourced from the article of Boba and Santos (2011) depicts the stratified model
which combines Systematic accountability and Systematic problem solving capabilities.
Figure 27: Stratified Model of Problem Solving, Analysis, and Accountability
“By separating and distinguishing the types of problems, different analyses, responses, and
accountability are carried out by different personnel within the agency. Accountability within the
CompStat process is essential to ensuring that the entire organization implements and maintains
its crime reduction efforts consistently and effectively. To accomplish this, the Stratified Model
employs a structure of meetings that follow the stratification of problem complexity and the
temporal nature of the problem being addressed. The meeting structure is presented as
follows130.
1) Daily meetings/briefings that facilitate action-oriented accountability at the line level for
crime reduction strategies implemented for immediate and short-term problems.
2) Weekly meetings that facilitate action-oriented accountability where employees from the
various divisions of the organization (e.g., patrol, investigations, crime prevention, and media
relations) come together to develop, coordinate, and assess responses to short-term
problems.
3) Monthly meetings that facilitate evaluation-oriented accountability within and among
geographic areas. Evaluative crime analysis products are used to assess whether short-term
crime reduction strategies are effective, whether long-term problems are emerging, and to
monitor the progress of ongoing long-term crime reduction strategies.
4) Semi-annual meetings that facilitate evaluation-oriented accountability for the entire
organization that are used to examine long-term trends to determine the effectiveness of the
agency’s crime reduction approach, to identify new long-term problems to be addressed over
129
Boba, R., & Santos, R. (2011). A police organizational model for crime reduction: Institutionalizing problem solving,
analysis, and accountability. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Service.
130
Boba, R., & Santos, R. (2011). A police organizational model for crime reduction: Institutionalizing problem solving,
analysis, and accountability. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Service.
the next six months or more, as well as to formulate agency goals and strategies for the
coming year(s)”.
6.9 Measuring the effects of Implementation of ICT initiatives in Police
In an effort to understand, identify and measure the effects of Information Technology on Law
enforcement agencies, The Institute for Law and Justice, USA has conducted an assessment of the
“Making Officer Redeployment Effective” (MORE) program of Community Oriented Police services
(COPS) in 2008-09. The following ICT systems which were part of the 2002 COPS-MORE grants were
considered as a part of the survey and study for assessment of benefits to the Police
organizations131.
i) Automated Field Reporting Systems (AFRS)
ii) Computer aided Dispatch Systems (CAD)
iii) Records Management Systems (RMS)
iv) Arrest and Booking Systems (ABS)
v) Automated Fingerprint identification systems (AFIS)
vi) Crime Analysis and Mapping Systems (CAMS)
IT infrastructure in the form of Mobile Data Terminals (MDTs) in patrol vehicles and
Desktops/Laptops were also procured as a process of the grant. The MDTs in most of the cases were
coupled with CAD, AFRS and RMS. The approach included assessment of the use of ICT systems
from a benefits realization point of view, across three parameters/Outcome measures, viz., i)
Efficiency, ii) Effectiveness and iii) Enabling. Efficiency was considered as completion of the task by a
said process with minimum expenditure of time and effort. Effectiveness was considered as doing a
better quality job to produce an intended or expected result and Enabling was considered as a
condition where in the introduction of an ICT led the Police do something, which they could not do
earlier.
Setting tone at the top with mission clarification for effective communication to all the
stakeholders on a regular basis is a key step for sustaining Business/Government Process
redesign and transformation initiatives. This also aids for laying down a process for
continuous improvement and also to seek regular feedback from all the primary
stakeholders. Methodical surveys and assessments on benefits realization using objective
outcome measures for the key ICT initiatives in Police organization and communication of
the advantages and merits to all the staff shall not only help in developing an ownership of
the benefits both at individual level and also at the organization level. This approach for
participatory identification of benefits and outcomes and communication of the same to all
stakeholders on how ICT addresses the process challenges is a best practice exercise of
Change management and also for Monitoring and Evaluation. In Indian context, the details
of benefits through select ICT system should be identified on various objective outcome
measures through participatory approaches and leadership communication to allay the
fears of change through ICTs and for encouraging the ownership of change, benefits,
challenges and sustainability of the systems.
131
Measuring effectiveness of IT in law enforcement, http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/Publications/e08084156-IT.pdf
The survey and assessment of ICT initiatives using objective parameters is a best practice which will
help the senior management to take stock of the ICT investments and review the programs on a
regular basis. The Personnel affected and Outcome measures were mapped to obtain a detailed
overview of the benefits of the program.
The survey and the assessment also led to identification of key challenges in each of the projects
with respect to user adoption and benefits realization. The study also considers the utility of each of
the Outcome measure in terms of its applicability in various conditions.
Regular assessments of the IT initiatives with simple frameworks built on objective parameters is
considered as a best practice for monitoring and review of ICT programs and for ICT portfolio
management of the Police organization. Such assessments designed as periodic in-built review
mechanisms not only aids the senior management to take stock of the working of the ICT solution
for risk management and issue resolution but also ensures continuous improvement and
sustainability of the programs. The following is the description of the assessment for Records
Management System (RMS) software which is akin to the Police stations management systems used
in India like Enterprise eCOPS, Police-IT and HD-IITS. While skeletal RMS applications address the
core functions of registration and investigation workflow of crime investigation process similar to
CCTNS or CIPA, completed RMS solutions built as an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solution
cater to other organizational functions as described below. The following assessment has been
reproduced from the USDOJ publication as a reference framework.
Functions: “ A complete RMS will support the following functions of a police department
 Calls for service
 Orders and restraints
 Incident reporting
 Permits and licenses
 Investigative case management
 Equipment and asset management
 Traffic accident reporting
 Fleet management
 Citations
 Personnel
 Field contacts
 Internal affairs
 Pawns
 Crime analysis.
 Civil process”
Benefits
Patrol Officers
 “Have faster access to information
 Acquire improved information for community policing
Detectives
 Have improved quantity of information
 Have faster access to information
 Obtain improved access to criminal histories
Field Supervisors
 Have faster access to information
 Obtain more information
 Obtain more accurate information
Command Staff
 Have faster access to records
 Obtain improved information on crime and calls for service
 Have improved investigative case management
 Obtain improved UCR reports
 Can track officer activities in a more efficient manner
 Have better management over property and evidence
 Obtain more information on traffic accidents
 Can track status of warrants in a more effective manner
 Obtain more information on activities of gangs
Records Personnel
 Develop more detailed UCR reports
 Require less data entry on records
 Have faster access to records
 Develop more accurate information on reports
 Have fewer requests for records because of automated distributions
 Have better tracking of traffic accidents
 Obtain easier access to records
Analysts
 Have faster access to records for analysis
 Have improved access to criminal histories”
Outcome measures:
Personnel Measure Outcome
affected
Patrol Average time for an incident report to be accessible in the Effectiveness
Officers RMS
Detectives Average time between incident and start of investigation Efficiency
Average time for an incident report to be accessible in the Effectiveness
RMS
Availability of information on pawn tickets, field Enabling
identification cards, other items
Number of data items describing incidents Enabling
Supervisors Average time for an incident report to be accessible in the Effectiveness
RMS
Number of errors in RMS record Effectiveness
Command Average time for an incident report to be accessible in the Efficiency
Staff RMS
Average number of errors per incident report Effectiveness
Amount of administrative down time because of better Enabling
resource management
Percentage of queries that can be done without Enabling
assistance
Records Average time for an incident report to be accessible in the Efficiency
personnel RMS
Time necessary to prepare UCR reports Efficiency
Time required for data entry Efficiency
Number of requests for records Efficiency
Analysts Average time for an incident report to be accessible in the Efficiency
RMS
Average number of errors per incident report Effectiveness
Key challenges in assessment

 “Most police departments had acquired their RMS from private vendors who specialize in
the development of these systems.
 The specifications for an RMS differ across vendors, depending on what applications
their product supports.
 Almost all vendors provide incident reporting, case management, traffic accident
management, and crime analysis, which are important to police departments because
they are core operational functions.
 Vendors may offer other applications, depending on the extent to which their products
have been developed.
 Another complicating factor for police departments is that an entire RMS does not have
to be acquired at one time.
 An agency can opt to obtain the core applications with the intent of adding other
functions at a later date. Funding availability can have a great effect on an agency’s
decision in this regard. While some of the respondent agencies acquired complete
systems, others acquired core applications, and others added modules to existing
applications.
 A final difference among was whether the RMS was acquired to upgrade a current
system, replace a current system through a new vendor, or automate a manual process.
“
Table 8: Assessment of Records Management System
For detailed assessment of other ICT solutions, the assessment report may be referred132.
132
Measuring the effects of Information technologies in Law enforcement organizations,
http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/Publications/e08084156-IT.pdf [Retrieved on 15-07-2013]
6.10 Public awareness messaging and Reverse 911/Emergency system
The Law Enforcement Information Technology Standards Council (LEITSC) has developed standard
best practices guidance document for design and development of Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD)
systems. The best practices and guidance document defines the baseline functionalities of a CAD
system in line with the technology and communication standards133.
One of the functionalities of CAD which can be considered as a best practice to be developed in
Indian context to build bridges between Police and communities through a credible and controlled
public awareness and crime prevention based messaging is the Reverse 911 or Reverse Emergency
call system which sends automated alerts and calls to the subscribed users.
Computer Aided Dispatch systems play a vital role in connecting the Police directly to the Public
and triaging the information flows towards policing action and crime prevention. Building policing
capabilities within communities itself is a vital task for which CAD systems can be innovatively
used with sufficient process standardization. A best practice which was implemented to address
the need to effectively provide relevant crime prevention information as a part of public
awareness programs was successfully implemented by a many Departments. This best practice
exemplifies the innovative use of ICTs for launching various initiatives for building Police and
Public partnerships and as a platform to efficiently manage public awareness on crime prevention
as a part of community policing programs. In India CAD facilities are being developed across
major urban centres and automated messaging and alert system as a part of CAD, both for
emergency and non-emergency information dissemination. It can also be innovatively used as a
part of public awareness programs, with stringently validated and credible information can be
utilized as intervention to build bridges between Police and communities.
The ability to broadcast, publish, or send messages to individuals or agencies that need to be aware
of critical events is a function that can help in laying a foundation for community policing, if
executed in a highly methodical and coordinated fashion. Examples for such reverse messaging
include Amber Alert, critical incident occurrences, utilities, transportation, hospitals, or the public at
large via the Citizen portal on the Internet and through the Reverse 911 capability.
The Reverse 911 capability is typically a part of the telephone system used in the communication
center. The system maintains a list of all callers who have nominated or subscribed themselves to be
a part of this community alert system. A Web interface is used as an option to provide citizens with
the ability to add their name to the call list, for noncritical incidents.
An information message can be created through CAD after following a due process of approvals
within the Department and also with the consent of local authorities. The automated system then
calls every person on the list and plays the voice message. There is usually not actually an interface
between the CAD system and the Reverse 911 system unless the call list is maintained in the CAD
database.
The San Diego County is one of such examples which provides for subscription of users for Reverse
911 services134. The site clearly mentions guidelines for the function of the system, including an
133
LEITSC report on CAD https://it.ojp.gov/documents/LEITSC_Law_Enforcement_CAD_Systems.pdf [Retrieved on 15-07-
2013]
134
Reverse 911, http://www.sandiego.gov/ohs/reverse911/ [Retrieved on 15-07-2013]
online subscription form for joining the public awareness programs. The San Diego Police provides
services only for land lines/fixed lines, whereas the Santa Barbara county police provides services
both for fixed and mobile phones135.
Started in late nineties and in the last decade, the Reverse 911 was used effectively for notifying
residents both in emergency and non-emergency situations. Large numbers of Boston residents
were notified on the water supply emergency and outbreak of contagious diseases through this
system in 2010136. The System was also used to alert neighboring residents on measures to be taken
during on the Bulldozing of unauthorized constructions, Mass shooting incidents in Schools and the
Boston marathon bombings137. Given below is the LEITSC’s illustration on Reverse 911138.
Figure 28: Reverse 911
6.11 47 Lessons Learned - Information Sharing System
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) hosts a portal for all Emergency response
agencies and Police and Law enforcement agencies to disseminate information on best practices and
lessons learnt139.Lessons Learned Information Sharing (LLIS.gov) is a US Department of Homeland
Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency program. LLIS.gov serves as the national, online
network of lessons learned, best practices, and innovative ideas for the emergency response and
homeland security communities.
135
Reverse 911, Santa Barbara county, http://sbsheriff.org/reverse911.html [Retrieved on 15-07-2013]
136
Boston Globe, http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2011/07/14/reverse_911_update/[Retrieved on 15-07-
2013]
137
Boston Marathon bombings, http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=b8bc2e6f-5daf-45a4-b390-403c3f1b018c
138
LEITSC report on CAD https://it.ojp.gov/documents/LEITSC_Law_Enforcement_CAD_Systems.pdf [Retrieved on 15-07-
2013]
139
LLIS website- https://www.llis.dhs.gov/
This information and collaboration resource helps emergency response providers and homeland
security officials prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks, natural
disasters, and other emergencies. LLIS.gov provides Federal, State, and local responders with a
wealth of information and front-line expertise on effective planning, training, and operational
practices across homeland security functional areas.
The Lessons Learned Information Sharing (LLIS.gov) staff includes a team of researchers who
produce four types of original content that contain experiential information to inform future
planning for homeland security and emergency response professionals. All LLIS.gov original content
is vetted and validated by the relevant officials and stakeholders before being posted to the system.
National/Regional/State level Knowledge portals and Information Repositories with user-

friendly content and interactive capabilities organized in a simple and easily searchable and
retrievable format can play a significant role in improving Police functioning. Customized
search tools and interactive features to share information on success stories, Lessons
Learnt, Best practices and standards will empower the police personnel with the strength
of knowledge and right information to take appropriate actions and decisions. The best
practice case of LLIS as mentioned above is replicable in Indian context with requisite
language localization. Relevant State Police organizations and National level organizations
like NCRB and BPR&D can further validate the proposed practices as “Best practices” ,
through scientific approaches and methodologies based on reliability and consistency of
the outcomes across well-defined contexts and assumptions.
The following are the key content shared on the LLIS website.
1. “Best Practices are peer-validated techniques, procedures, and solutions that have demonstrated
their effectiveness in operations, training, and exercises across multiple jurisdictions or
organizations.
2. Lessons Learnt is positive or negative experiences derived from actual incidents, operations,
training, and exercises.
3. Practice Notes describe procedures, techniques, or methods that have been adopted by a single
jurisdiction or organization to adapt to changing circumstances.
4. Good Stories describe successful, innovative programs and initiatives developed by a jurisdiction
that others may wish to emulate.
5. Notes from the Field are brief updates related to initiatives and activities generally developed by
field-based staff to share experiences and knowledge during and/or soon after an event.
6. Trend Analysis consists of a study comparing similar events, activities, capacities, or capabilities
over a predetermined time period to detect patterns or relationships between factors or
variables.”
7 Compilation of best practices considered for CCTNS project
The Central Project Management Consultant (CPMC) of CCTNS project developed a knowledge base
of both process and technology practices identified from various countries. The identified best
practices have been shared by NCRB/MHA to all the States/UTs to consider for various process
improvements and as reference material for customization of Core Application Software of CCTNS as
per state specific requirements. Select best practices have been presented/ reproduced below as
reference material140.
Best Practices - United Kingdom

1 Best Practice #1 (Process) National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS)
Brief Description of Best Practice “NCRS is a crime recording standard in
operation in UK Police forces, which
provides guidelines and rules on how, why
and when to record ‘crime related
incidents’. All police forces in England and
Wales adopted the NCRS in April 2002. The
NCRS was developed following the
investigations into crime recording variation
by Association of Chief Police Officers
(ACPO), the Home Office and Her Majesty’s
Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC).
Variation in recording practices had made
comparisons between police forces and,
indeed, national estimates of the level of
recorded crime, difficult to measure
accurately.
The focus of the NCRS has been to
harmonize police forces’ approaches to
crime recording in order to improve
confidence in the recorded crime statistics
and to enable a more robust comparison of
police performance to be undertaken. The
implementation of a more victim-oriented
approach to crime recording has provided a
better measure of the service demanded
from the police, and aims to promote public
confidence in the police service as a whole. “
Best Practice Benefit(s)
•” To enable capturing of crime/incidents
for enhanced analysis and intelligence
development
• To promote greater consistency between
police forces in the recording of crime
• Better victim oriented approach to crime
recording “
2 Best Practice #2 “National Standard for Incident Recording

(NSIR) “
140
International Best practices report of CCTNS project, NCRB, New Delhi
Brief Description of Best Practice “NSIR is a standard for recording incidents
of any form in the UK. The standard lays
down certain guidelines on why, how and
when to record an incident. The principal
aim of the National Standard for Incident
Recording (NSIR) is:
to ensure that all incidents, whether crime
or non- crime, are recorded by police in a
consistent and accurate manner, so as to
allow resulting data to be used at a local
and national level to meet the management
and performance information needs of all
stakeholders.”
• “Helps in developing resource and action
plans based on incident capture
• Greater consistency, accuracy and
comparability of incident data captured
across the Police forces “
3 Best Practice #3 (Technology) “A central nationalized database called Police

National Computer (PNC) for querying on crime
or criminal entities “
Brief Description of Best Practice “PNC is the centralized database storing
information on vehicles of interest, people,
crime & criminals. It has become an on-line aid
to investigations.
PNC holds details of people, vehicles, crimes and
property that can be electronically accessed by
the police and other criminal justice agencies. It
is a national information system maintained
and delivered by the NPIA. It is accessible online
to law enforcement agencies – 24 hours, each
day. “
• “Updated information available for crime,
property and criminal investigations
• A single source for uploading information to,
on things of Police’s interest: vehicles,
missing/dead persons, criminals/suspects,
sensitive or lost/stolen properties “
4 Best Practice #4 CRASH – National Collision Reporting
(Technology)
Brief Description of Best “CRASH is a national police system that aims to improve the
Practice efficiency, accuracy and timeliness of the collision reporting
process.
Providing a variety of workflow oriented interfaces, CRASH
allows police officers to quickly enter and manage information
whether at the roadside or at the police station. These
facilities include direct access to data held in the Police
National Computer (PNC), enabling the verification and auto-
population of key fields.
CRASH integrates seamlessly with existing police systems,
both local and national, to ensure information is always
disseminated as required. It also supports the automatic
submission of appropriate data to the Department for
Transport (DfT) and local authorities, enabling identification of
accident hotspots and a reduction in the number of road-users
killed or injured. This national policing application will help to
save lives and reduce police paperwork. “
“• Rapid identification of accident hot-spots and their relative
severities.
• Standardization of information collected.
• Improved availability, allowing forces to analyze all
information stored on the system and extract data for their
own data warehouses.
• Assistance with local planning and road traffic
management.
• Prevention of future road traffic accidents. “
5 Best Practice # 5 IDENT 1 for Fingerprints

(Technology)
Brief Description of Best “IDENT 1 is the replacement for UK’s National Automated
Practice Fingerprint Identification Service (NAFIS) technology.
Being able to identify one person from many is vital to
policing. NPIA-inspired technology now lets authorities do this
faster and more accurately than ever before. IDENT 1
supersedes NAFIS and adds increasingly sophisticated
identification techniques to the existing platform, while
ensuring business continuity of the current service to police.
IDENT 1 is part of a wider drive towards formulating codes of
best practice for government use of biometrics, such as facial
imaging, fingerprint and iris technology.
The purpose of IDENT 1 is to provide the strategic platform for
future identification services and capabilities, which include
palm searching, integration of Scottish records, and improved
searching
Best practice benefits • “Enhanced options for identification of a person using
biometrics
• Improved forms of evidence building through the use
biometrics (fingerprints, palms, face, iris) “
Table 9: Best practices- United Kingdom
Best Practices - United States of America

1 Best Practice #1 (Process) National Incident Based Recording System (NIBRS)
Brief Description of Best “National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is an
Practice incident-based reporting system used by law enforcement
agencies in the United States for collecting and reporting data
on crimes to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Local,
state and federal agencies generate NIBRS data from their
records management systems.
NIBRS is a standard, improved out of the Uniform Crime
Reporting (UCR) program in US, which gives guidelines and
definitions on how to collate and report crime data and
statistics to the FBI.
In order to ensure that it fulfills its purpose, NIBRS has
adopted the following goals:
• To enhance the quantity, quality, and timeliness of crime
statistical data collected by the law enforcement community.
• To improve the methodology used for compiling, analyzing,
auditing, and publishing the collected crime data”.
• “To enhance the quantity, quality, and timeliness of crime
statistical data collected by the law enforcement community
• To improve the methodology used for compiling, analyzing,
auditing, and publishing collected crime data “
SNo Best Practice #2 (Process) Segregation of Emergency and Non-Emergency Numbers, with
implementation of 311 in NYC
2 Brief Description of Best “‘311’ is New York City's web site and phone number for
Practice government information and non-emergency services.) NYC
311 is an advanced customer service phone system that
handles three times more call volume than the largest
government call centre in the United States. Now cities and
nations around the world are looking to NYC 311 as a model
for high-volume service delivery.
NYC 311's mission is to:
• Provide the public with quick, easy access to all New York
City government services and information while maintaining
the highest possible level of customer service.
• Help agencies improve service delivery by allowing them to
focus on their core missions and manage their workload
efficiently.
• Provide insight into ways to improve City government
through accurate, consistent measurement and analysis of
service delivery Citywide. “
Best Practice Benefit(s) • “Proper channeling of a non-emergency distress call of a
citizen to the right people, in the right place at the appropriate
time
• Better management of resources at hand for solving highly
critical and most relevant issues
• Improved citizen confidence in Police and the Government “
SNo Best Practice #3 National Crime Information Centre (NCIC)

(Technology)
3 Brief Description of Best “NCIC, it’s been called the lifeline of law enforcement – is an
Practice electronic clearinghouse of crime data that can be tapped into
by virtually every criminal justice agency US wide, 24 hours a
day, and 365 days a year.
NCIC helps criminal justice professionals apprehend fugitives,
locate missing persons, recover stolen property, and identify
terrorists. It also assists law enforcement officers in
performing their official duties more safely and provides them
with information necessary to aid in protecting the general
public.
• Integrated national information system on stolen/missing
property, locating missing persons, verify suspect vehicles,
identify terrorists etc.
• Enhanced ability for criminal justice units to investigate
cases and help bring them to appropriate prosecutional
conclusions.”
4 Best Practice #4 “Geographic Information System (GIS) driven Law Enforcement

(Technology) Projects “
Brief Description of Best “Law enforcement agencies face a multitude of tasks and
Practice challenges in their daily responsibility of protecting life and
property while keeping the peace in their communities.
Virtually every task and challenge has a geographic
component. While law enforcement agencies collect vast
amounts of data, only a very small part of this information can
be absorbed from spreadsheets and database files. GIS
provides a visual, spatial means of displaying data, allowing
law enforcement agencies to integrate and leverage their data
for more informed decision making.
Relevant GIS driven projects that have been executed in US
are:
1. Regional Crime Analysis Tool – Santa Clara County,
California
2. Geo-Coding to Help Find Missing Children
3. Spatial Crime Analysis (with Crime View and Citrix software
systems) “
• “Effectively plan and respond to emergency situations based
on spatial knowledge
• Analyze GIS captured data to develop spatial intelligence and
resource deployment plans “
S.No Best Practice #5 (Technology) Command and Dispatch (CAD) Interoperability

5 Brief Description of Best “The Computer‐Aided Dispatch (CAD) Interoperability Project
Practice (CADIP) was launched in the US in May 2007. CAD systems,
which dispatch emergency services and assist 9‐1‐1
operators and dispatchers in handling and prioritizing
requests for resources, serve as a major component in
responding to critical incidents. CADIP addressed an issue
that most past and even recent emergency response
agencies in US faced or still face: CAD systems that are not
linked across jurisdictions and, as a result, have difficultly
responding to multi‐jurisdictional emergencies.
We have explained how the CADIP solution, finally deployed
in California, Oregon and Arizona states, worked to solve the
connectivity and coordination problems inherent in its CAD
systems.
The deployed Connected CAD system solution enabled
Dispatchers to transfer incident information from one
agency to one or multiple agencies connected to it. While it
was designed to augment emergency response operations, it
did not replace existing mission critical systems. Once
information had been entered into a Connected CAD system,
the data was translated into a standardized messaging
format. After the data was translated into the Standard
format, this system enhanced, filtered, and delivered the
data to the correct destination. Before sending the
information to the destination system, the data was
translated back to the original format, allowing a seamless
system to system transfer of information that did not require
all agencies to use the same CAD software (open source
based).
The interoperable CAD system even allowed for a call for
service (CFS) message and a chat message to be passed
between systems. Each call for service message contained
(indicatively) 5 key pieces of information: location, name,
problem, passing remarks, and one call back number.
Enhanced capabilities such as to share messages, the status
of available resources, and, potentially, police records
among field units also existed.”
Best Practice Benefit(s) •” Reduction in response time
• Improved personnel efficiency
• Improved vehicle efficiency “
Table 10: Best practices: United States of America
S.No Best Practices - Singapore
1 Best Practice #1 The SMS 70999 Project
(Technology)
Brief Description of Best “In 2007, Police Technology Department (PTD) worked with
Practice the Operations Department on the launch of SMS 70999, an
Emergency Short Messaging Service (SMS) Helpline, which is
a joint initiative between SPF and the National Council of
Social Service (NSCC). This service offers members of public,
with hearing and speech impairments who are registered
with NSCC, another avenue of communication with the SPF
during emergencies. “
• Allowing hearing and speech impaired citizens to reach
Police for emergency services
2 Best Practice Mobile Automated Vehicle Screening System (MAVSS)

#2(Technology)
Brief Description of Best “Police Technology Department (PTD) jointly worked with the
Practice Operations Department in 2007 to implement the Mobile
Automated Vehicle Screening System (MAVSS) in SPF. The
MVASS automatically screens vehicles using cameras
mounted in Fast Response Cars (FRCs) that reads off the
registration numbers of vehicles it captures. When a wanted
vehicle is detected, the system automatically alerts the patrol
officer without him having to conduct a manual check. “
• Increased detection rates for suspected, missing and/or
stolen vehicles
3 Best Practice #3 Web-based Intelligent Analytical & Graphical Visualization

(Technology) System (WINGS)
Brief Description of Best “PTD worked with the Commercial Affairs Department to
Practice launch the Web-based Intelligent Analytical and Graphical
Visualization System (WINGS), which enables Commercial
Affairs Department officers to analyze voluminous data to
detect money laundering, terrorism financing and other
criminal activities. “
• “Enhanced investigation capability for suspected funds
transfer, terrorism financing and related “
4 Best Practice #4 Environment for Virtualized Evidence (EVE)
Brief Description of Best “The EVE application, an automated software system, is a
Practice world’s first and one of the Police's most successful
innovations. EVE allows investigators to examine a seized
computer or other storage device on their own computers,
using intuitive search tools or a virtual representation of
the device, in a way that is forensically safe and does not
put any evidence at risk. It allows police officers to analyze
an electronic device for evidence by creating a
clone/’virtual image’ of it and downloading its data to a
Storage Area Network (SAN), made available to the
frontline investigator via the Police enterprise network;
the officers can then search through. The software also
enables officers to use a device as the suspect would have
whilst still preserving all of the data in its original form.
EVE was developed in-house and without extra staff,
equipment or money.
EVE provides as a powerful visual tool that will be
invaluable in presenting electronic evidence when cases
are brought before the courts. “
•” Improved investigative capability when working with
digital evidences to solve cases
• Increased safety and secure sharing of sensitive digital
evidence
• Reduction of excessive load on scientific labs for
evidence processing “
Table 11: Best practices: Singapore
Best Practices - Australia
1 Best Practice #1 (Process) Case Categorization and Prioritization Model (CCPM)
Brief Description of Best “The Australian Federal Police (AFP) evaluates almost all issues,
Practice inclusive of investigation related matters, in accordance with its
Case Categorization and Prioritization Model (CCPM). The
CCPM has been developed by the AFP to assist those who are
required to consider various issues which lead to the
acceptance, rejection, termination, finalization or resourcing of
operational matters. The CCPM is used to provide a
transparent, objective and consistent basis for evaluating and
comparing Australian Police operational activities from a range
of perspectives, including across the AFP at an organization
level, for individual Programs and Functions or within a
geographic location.
How the CCPM is used
The major elements of the CCPM include:
• incident type, the impact of the matter on Australian society;
• the importance of the matter to both the client and the AFP in
terms of the roles assigned to them by Government and
Ministerial direction; and
• The resources required by the AFP to undertake the matter.
Best Practice Benefit(s) • Improved prioritization in investigative matters
• Best resource fit action plans to handle/speed up
investigations considered as highly sensitive, complex or visible
Best Practice #2 Access through Mobile Handhelds to Police Databases, Western

2 (Technology) Australia (WA)
Brief Description of Best “Searching for details about particular individuals and vehicles
Practice is a fundamental part of police work. For this purpose a mobile
solution, using used hand-held computers and high-speed
wireless communications, was developed by Fujitsu to provide
WA Police officers on patrol with direct access to databases
holding information about people and vehicles.
The application allows police to enter name and vehicle
searches on their hand-held devices. Queries are sent via secure
GPRS connection to WA Police headquarters. “
• Boosted the ability to conduct queries while on field patrolling
• Significant increase in identification of wanted suspects
and/or criminals
3 Best Practice #3 Australian National Child Offence Register (ANCOR)
Brief Description of Best “The Australian National Child Offender Register (ANCOR) is a
Practice web-based system designed to assist police to register, case
manage and share mandatory information about registered
persons as required by legislation. It also enables alerts to be
generated when registered persons notify that they are
planning to travel interstate or overseas. “
Best Practice Benefit(s) •” Aids in solving crimes against children
• Helps protect children from being harmed again by
providing investigative information in bringing the
suspects/criminal to law “
4 Best Practice #4 National Police Reference System (NPRS)

Brief Description of Best “To facilitate the brokering of information, CrimTrac hosts the
Practice NPRS, which enables Australian police and law enforcement
agencies to exchange information about persons of interest. “
• “Sharing of intelligence and information on persons of
Policing interest
• Helps in breaking down organized crime “
Table 12: Best practices: Australia

Best Practices Report - Police and Law Enforcement V1.0

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Best Practices Report - Police and Law Enforcement V1.0

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

e-Governance Best Practices Report:

Police and Law Enforcement

e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 i

(cc) Creative Common License - Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic

NISG-CBKM 73-20/Best Practices - CIO/09-2013/V1

e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 ii

Figure 1: Field Establishment of the Police Force 6

“Table 1: Components of eCOPS” 35

e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 iv

e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 v

e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 vi

e-Governance Best Practices Report: Police and Law Enforcement – 2013 ix

2.1 Police Organizations

The Field Establishment of the Police Force is presented below

Director General of Police (Incharge of the State Police force)

Figure 1: Field Establishment of the Police Force

2.2 Role of Central Government

 “Recruiting and managing the Indian Police Service;

2.3 Policing as a Function

i) “Organizational transformation: The paramilitary, status-quoistic and colonial

2.4 Reform Initiatives in the Police Sector

(i) “Directorate of Coordination Police Computers (MHA)

i) IIF-1: First Information Report

• Police Station Management System

3.1 Crime and Criminal information System (CCIS)

The main objectives of the CCIS are to

• Computerize crime and criminal information collected by Inquiry Officer

Figure 3: Typical CCIS architecture

Registers/Reports/Queries: This functionality generates various reports, registers and outputs

Figure 5: Key stakeholders of CCTNS

Figure 8: CCTNS functional model

3.4 Police-IT project and other ICT initiatives

i) Improvement of ease of administration

a. Law and Order

Given below are the key features of Police-IT application.

Figure 10: Karnataka State Police Wide Area Network

 Issue of copy of FIR to the complainant – Immediate

 Document delivery status

Criminal Intelligence System- an Investigation tool

Call Analysis Tool

Investigation Support Centre application

(i) SCRB software

Figure 11: Network Diagram of AP Police

SNo Core applications Technology used DB Deployment

4 AP Police website Java J2EE, DOJO Oracle 10g Win/ JBOSS

6 Call Analysis Tool NET Framework Oracle 10g Win/IIS 6.0

7 Mailing System Netcore Mail SQL Server Web

8 Personnel Visual Basic 6.0 SQL Server Win/ JBOSS

9 Passport .Net / Win Oracle 10g Web

10 Issue Tracking .NET Framework Oracle 10g Win/IIS 6.0”

“Table 1: Components of eCOPS”

 “Web based GUI for all the business functionality

Figure 13: Envisaged integration/interfacing for HD-IITS as a part of CCTNS program

 Recovery status of a stolen/missing vehicle by Police

 “Portrait Building System assists to assemble and edit face components.

The following tools are also available with the application:

Figure 14: Timelines: E-Governance in Police and law enforcement in India

5.1 Centralized Dial 100 systems

 Integrated Control Room (Police/Fire/Medical Emergency): An integrated command center that

5.2 Mobile Handheld/Blackberry based Traffic enforcement systems

Blackberry application enables traffic field personnel to have

 Blackberry handheld device

Given below is the Blackberry deployment architecture.