Headline – LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES ACROSS THE NATION ASPIRE TO REGIONAL DATA SHARING, POLICE DEPARTMENTS IN BERKS COUNTY ARE EXPERIENCING IT
Berks County, PA; 2000 -- When three neighboring police officers collaborated on a plan to link the provincial police departments of Berks County, PA, to a shareable records base, even bureaucracy could not stop them. Facing challenge after challenge, they prevailed until the critics came to share their vision and embrace it.
In early 2000, after a countywide cooperative development and hands-on beta testing, the Wyomissing Police Department of Berks County, PA officially and successfully launched the first C.O.B.R.A. regional access data-sharing network. So, while most law enforcement agencies across the nation still aspire to regional data sharing, the 44 police departments of Berks County are experiencing it.
The immediate goal of the project was to provide municipal police officers across the county with access to valuable county incident, want, and warrant files in "real-time" through a single point of contact.
"For all of the police departments in the county, who prior to this had never shared ANY information, now actually able to have real-time access to ALL county offender data from all departments and mobile units is simply incredible," says Chief Michael J. Spear, Central Berks Regional Police Department, headquartered in Reading, Pa.
Mike Spear, along with Chief Theodore (Randy) R. Cole, Kutztown Borough Police Department, Kutztown, Pa. and Wyomissing’s Sgt. Robert (Rob) F. Johnson, spearheaded the project. "Access to county-wide information is a tremendously powerful investigative tool because you need to know what’s been going on. You need to be able to review incidents. You need to go back and check what had occurred and who was involved, even if it wasn’t in your city or township" Chief Cole says.
The system also provides a quick link to vital statewide warrants, NCIC, JNET and other information. And, as of June, 2004, the original C.O.B.R.A. system has expanded its capabilities to include and embrace data from adjoining counties through an inter-county Justice-Hub.
"Before this there was no ability to share information other than by word of mouth, or by attending a monthly county crime meeting," says Sgt. Johnson. "So we sort of took the bull by the horns and said, let’s do this together and it might work out better."
Cooperation at the Command Post:
An auxiliary, yet equally important effect of the project is the spirit of accomplishment and camaraderie that evolved throughout the fulfillment of the project. After all, this first-of-its-kind connection would never have been built without an unprecedented level of communication and cooperation between people representing law enforcement, government, civilian and commercial communities. And that cooperation didn’t come easy because from the outset there were challenges, hurdles, roadblocks, objections and questions.
In fact, a plethora of questions arose. How can we maintain system and data security over a wide network? Can we ensure that information from individual departments is not co-mingled into a single database? What about any disparity between records management systems in different departments? How do we connect departments that don’t have an electronic records management system? Will the solution accommodate county-wide growth and expansion? And perhaps the most challenging question of all: Who’s going to pay for it?
Relentlessly, the trio of officers stayed the course until, at last, each argument was systematically approached, addressed and answered to everyone’s satisfaction.
"The biggest problem we had after we came up with the concept was, how do we connect everybody?" says Sgt. Johnson. "Nobody had deep enough pockets to make the connectivity thing work. We knew what we wanted to do. We knew the vendor [CODY Systems] had the technology to do it. We just had to figure out how the connectivity was going to be accomplished, and the county stepped in and provided that for us when it created the records server. It’s a little bit different of a configuration than I had envisioned, but it’s free, and free is good for municipal government."
An Idea is Born:
The project was, indeed, burdened with questions from the outset. In fact, the story begins with a question.
Berks’ bold trek towards county connectivity got its foothold in the late 1990s when, like other counties across the country, its local law enforcement and government agencies were faced with the dreaded "Y2K problem" — the knowledge that their computers and software were not going to be supported once the calendar turned-over to 2000. Several police departments throughout the County initiated system upgrades, which, at the same time presented the opportunity to upgrade their records management systems.
It was after one of those departments completed its own system upgrade that the idea of sharing was first proposed. "We were looking at ways to limit some of our department’s costs," recalls Sgt. Johnson, "and I suggested to my chief that we should see if it was technologically feasible to have a few departments around us work off one of our servers."
With a nod from the chief, Sgt. Johnson followed up on his idea and called Dave Heffner, president of CODY Systems. The CODY RMS package was already the choice of the majority of the departments throughout the county, including Wyomissing. CODY would surely know if the idea were feasible or not.
"We floated our idea to the CODY people," Sgt. Johnson continues, "and they said, ‘Yes, we could do that. But wouldn’t it be a greater thing if we had something in the county that everyone could share?’"
Sgt. Johnson’s agreement was all the motivation the software engineers at CODY needed. They seized the opportunity to develop the new technology while working intensely with a task force that included representatives of the local police departments, the Berks County Chiefs Association, and the Berks County Communications Center. "We met for months, probably a year and a half, before we went to the county commissioners," Chief Spear recalls. "And I actually used the Y2K issue. That was my ace in the hole."
Who Said it Couldn't be Done?
The solution that finally made this networking possible is a unique and highly specialized data-sharing interface called C.O.B.R.A. (collaborative object-based regional access), developed by CODY Systems, Pottstown, Pa. CODY has more than 25 years of experience in providing integrated Windows-based software systems used by public safety, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies across the country to organize, analyze, and manage sensitive information.
The basic concept behind C.O.B.R.A. is data encryption and interoperable, real-time communication over a dedicated wireless link between a center-point and the records management systems at each local department. Ideally, records query communications are made directly from a patrol car through a wireless connection to the county center-point, either through a laptop computer or an MDT. But that connection left a critical sector out of the loop – those departments, especially smaller ones, who did not yet have mobile communications.
This was overcome by building a wide area network (WAN) that connects each department to the center-point, says Fred Hershey, who, as project manager for the Berks County IT department, included among his responsibilities serving as liaison between the County, CODY, and AT&T in the installation of the appropriate circuitry. "It’s basically a frame relay network with routers on each end that allow communications," Hershey explains. "We have a protected network because it is not a public network, but a direct connection that ensures a great measure of security."
With this solution, each police department, large and small, can maintain its own records database. Self-selected data is automatically encrypted and passed, through the C.O.B.R.A. interface, to the center-point where it is accessible to every other department in the county. Now, any local department can quickly search not only its own files but the center-point files as well. "C.O.B.R.A. has significant implications for enhancing investigative work," says Hershey. "It gives investigators across the county the ability to determine if crimes of similar nature are occurring within the county."
Objection Overruled:
Once the logistics of universal connection were determined, other concerns arose only to be conquered. One such apprehension concerned data security. But C.O.B.R.A. provides secure encryption of highly sensitive police data so that it can be safely transmitted over the wireless or wide area network, securing data transmissions to and from the center-point.
Moreover, C.O.B.R.A. has universal data-source translation capabilities and operates independently of other software products in the network. C.O.B.R.A. can communicate with virtually any records management software package available today, and can translate any applicable data-source (JXML, SQL, secured TCP/IP, etc.). This was a critical point. While 28 of the 44 departments in the county upgraded to CODY RMS, there were still a variety of records systems being utilized by the other departments.
Another early issue was data privacy. Yet individual records are still secure in their respective departments through C.O.B.R.A.. Each department controls which data is passed to the center-point, where each department has its own dedicated file space. This means the data is not co-mingled into one file. This was particularly important because of rules spelled out by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office about not co-mingling data. "We own our own records," says Sgt. Johnson. "It’s not like we’re giving them up. It’s the center-point that is queried when you do a C.O.B.R.A. search, not our departmental records."
No RMS system? No Problem:
Of special concern were the County’s smaller departments whose Y2K upgrades were made simply to desktop PCs without records management software or a private server. To complete the communications loop between all agencies across the county, a solution was needed that would be compatible with the wide variety of technologies employed.
These smaller departments were brought into the network as "satellite" users. Their local PCs were connected to the center-point through special CODY RMS software. This allows them to interface with the center-point as though it was their own server. Their data is stored directly at the center-point rather than being passed to it. Now, through the WAN connection, they are able to share their data with other departments throughout the county and, importantly, they are able to perform data searches directly from their desktop PCs." I think it’s important to point out," says Hershey, "that because of special software developed by CODY, the center-point is available to all of our police departments whether they yet share data. They can search the warrants database or they can search to see if there’s any history on a person or vehicle."
Because Criminals Know no Boundaries:
"Criminals do not know boundaries of municipality," says Sgt. Johnson. "We’ve been able to pool all our resources to hopefully recognize that another area may be having a similar problem, such as a pattern of burglaries with the same M.O. Rather than several departments doing their own investigations, they can now work together. The inability to do this before created multiple investigations, probably about the same individual. C.O.B.R.A. has created, in a sense, a county-wide police department without all the hoops and things we would have had to jump through to become one agency."
While the immediate benefits of this approach are obvious — quicker and broader access to valuable incident and investigative information — perhaps best of all is a fostering of cooperation between county government and what had once been 44 friendly but fractionated police departments.
"I’ve seen municipal government for a long time," says Sgt. Johnson. "And this is probably the first time the government at all levels – borough, county and all the other municipalities involved – actually worked together to create a fantastic product. It’s the way it should work."
And while this approach has fostered communication, collaboration and cooperation within the Berks County law enforcement fraternity, its implications are more far reaching. From small-time crooks with more mobility to terror threats and inter-state kidnappings, the need for more open, regionalized sharing of data between agencies is clear. So clear, that the U.S. Attorney General, John Ashcroft, has recently approved the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan, which (among other things) calls on local and county agencies across the nation to link together and form criminal-information sharing networks that will eventually be merged into one unified network. To police departments in Berks County this is old news...they are already there.
For more information please CODY Systems at 610.326.7476 or info@codysystems.com. Also visit CODY on the web at www.codysystems.com.
About CODY Systems -- CODY Systems has remained an industry leader in the protection, management, and analysis of critical information for public safety, law enforcement, and federal agencies for over 25 years. Specializing in integrated single-source solutions and interoperable information-sharing, CODY is sought by agencies world-wide for its combination of ground-breaking 21st century technologies and old-fashioned 'first-name basis' services. CODY's industry-leading products include: RMS (records), CAD (dispatch), CMIS (case management & intelligence analysis), MRMS (mobile records), C.O.B.R.A. (collaborative object-based regional access) -- CODY's JXML compliant, open-data-source information-sharing interface, and many more.
In early 2000, after a countywide cooperative development and hands-on beta testing, the Wyomissing Police Department of Berks County, PA officially and successfully launched the first C.O.B.R.A. regional access data-sharing network. So, while most law enforcement agencies across the nation still aspire to regional data sharing, the 44 police departments of Berks County are experiencing it.
The immediate goal of the project was to provide municipal police officers across the county with access to valuable county incident, want, and warrant files in "real-time" through a single point of contact.
"For all of the police departments in the county, who prior to this had never shared ANY information, now actually able to have real-time access to ALL county offender data from all departments and mobile units is simply incredible," says Chief Michael J. Spear, Central Berks Regional Police Department, headquartered in Reading, Pa.
Mike Spear, along with Chief Theodore (Randy) R. Cole, Kutztown Borough Police Department, Kutztown, Pa. and Wyomissing’s Sgt. Robert (Rob) F. Johnson, spearheaded the project. "Access to county-wide information is a tremendously powerful investigative tool because you need to know what’s been going on. You need to be able to review incidents. You need to go back and check what had occurred and who was involved, even if it wasn’t in your city or township" Chief Cole says.
The system also provides a quick link to vital statewide warrants, NCIC, JNET and other information. And, as of June, 2004, the original C.O.B.R.A. system has expanded its capabilities to include and embrace data from adjoining counties through an inter-county Justice-Hub.
"Before this there was no ability to share information other than by word of mouth, or by attending a monthly county crime meeting," says Sgt. Johnson. "So we sort of took the bull by the horns and said, let’s do this together and it might work out better."
Cooperation at the Command Post:
An auxiliary, yet equally important effect of the project is the spirit of accomplishment and camaraderie that evolved throughout the fulfillment of the project. After all, this first-of-its-kind connection would never have been built without an unprecedented level of communication and cooperation between people representing law enforcement, government, civilian and commercial communities. And that cooperation didn’t come easy because from the outset there were challenges, hurdles, roadblocks, objections and questions.
In fact, a plethora of questions arose. How can we maintain system and data security over a wide network? Can we ensure that information from individual departments is not co-mingled into a single database? What about any disparity between records management systems in different departments? How do we connect departments that don’t have an electronic records management system? Will the solution accommodate county-wide growth and expansion? And perhaps the most challenging question of all: Who’s going to pay for it?
Relentlessly, the trio of officers stayed the course until, at last, each argument was systematically approached, addressed and answered to everyone’s satisfaction.
"The biggest problem we had after we came up with the concept was, how do we connect everybody?" says Sgt. Johnson. "Nobody had deep enough pockets to make the connectivity thing work. We knew what we wanted to do. We knew the vendor [CODY Systems] had the technology to do it. We just had to figure out how the connectivity was going to be accomplished, and the county stepped in and provided that for us when it created the records server. It’s a little bit different of a configuration than I had envisioned, but it’s free, and free is good for municipal government."
An Idea is Born:
The project was, indeed, burdened with questions from the outset. In fact, the story begins with a question.
Berks’ bold trek towards county connectivity got its foothold in the late 1990s when, like other counties across the country, its local law enforcement and government agencies were faced with the dreaded "Y2K problem" — the knowledge that their computers and software were not going to be supported once the calendar turned-over to 2000. Several police departments throughout the County initiated system upgrades, which, at the same time presented the opportunity to upgrade their records management systems.
It was after one of those departments completed its own system upgrade that the idea of sharing was first proposed. "We were looking at ways to limit some of our department’s costs," recalls Sgt. Johnson, "and I suggested to my chief that we should see if it was technologically feasible to have a few departments around us work off one of our servers."
With a nod from the chief, Sgt. Johnson followed up on his idea and called Dave Heffner, president of CODY Systems. The CODY RMS package was already the choice of the majority of the departments throughout the county, including Wyomissing. CODY would surely know if the idea were feasible or not.
"We floated our idea to the CODY people," Sgt. Johnson continues, "and they said, ‘Yes, we could do that. But wouldn’t it be a greater thing if we had something in the county that everyone could share?’"
Sgt. Johnson’s agreement was all the motivation the software engineers at CODY needed. They seized the opportunity to develop the new technology while working intensely with a task force that included representatives of the local police departments, the Berks County Chiefs Association, and the Berks County Communications Center. "We met for months, probably a year and a half, before we went to the county commissioners," Chief Spear recalls. "And I actually used the Y2K issue. That was my ace in the hole."
Who Said it Couldn't be Done?
The solution that finally made this networking possible is a unique and highly specialized data-sharing interface called C.O.B.R.A. (collaborative object-based regional access), developed by CODY Systems, Pottstown, Pa. CODY has more than 25 years of experience in providing integrated Windows-based software systems used by public safety, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies across the country to organize, analyze, and manage sensitive information.
The basic concept behind C.O.B.R.A. is data encryption and interoperable, real-time communication over a dedicated wireless link between a center-point and the records management systems at each local department. Ideally, records query communications are made directly from a patrol car through a wireless connection to the county center-point, either through a laptop computer or an MDT. But that connection left a critical sector out of the loop – those departments, especially smaller ones, who did not yet have mobile communications.
This was overcome by building a wide area network (WAN) that connects each department to the center-point, says Fred Hershey, who, as project manager for the Berks County IT department, included among his responsibilities serving as liaison between the County, CODY, and AT&T in the installation of the appropriate circuitry. "It’s basically a frame relay network with routers on each end that allow communications," Hershey explains. "We have a protected network because it is not a public network, but a direct connection that ensures a great measure of security."
With this solution, each police department, large and small, can maintain its own records database. Self-selected data is automatically encrypted and passed, through the C.O.B.R.A. interface, to the center-point where it is accessible to every other department in the county. Now, any local department can quickly search not only its own files but the center-point files as well. "C.O.B.R.A. has significant implications for enhancing investigative work," says Hershey. "It gives investigators across the county the ability to determine if crimes of similar nature are occurring within the county."
Objection Overruled:
Once the logistics of universal connection were determined, other concerns arose only to be conquered. One such apprehension concerned data security. But C.O.B.R.A. provides secure encryption of highly sensitive police data so that it can be safely transmitted over the wireless or wide area network, securing data transmissions to and from the center-point.
Moreover, C.O.B.R.A. has universal data-source translation capabilities and operates independently of other software products in the network. C.O.B.R.A. can communicate with virtually any records management software package available today, and can translate any applicable data-source (JXML, SQL, secured TCP/IP, etc.). This was a critical point. While 28 of the 44 departments in the county upgraded to CODY RMS, there were still a variety of records systems being utilized by the other departments.
Another early issue was data privacy. Yet individual records are still secure in their respective departments through C.O.B.R.A.. Each department controls which data is passed to the center-point, where each department has its own dedicated file space. This means the data is not co-mingled into one file. This was particularly important because of rules spelled out by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office about not co-mingling data. "We own our own records," says Sgt. Johnson. "It’s not like we’re giving them up. It’s the center-point that is queried when you do a C.O.B.R.A. search, not our departmental records."
No RMS system? No Problem:
Of special concern were the County’s smaller departments whose Y2K upgrades were made simply to desktop PCs without records management software or a private server. To complete the communications loop between all agencies across the county, a solution was needed that would be compatible with the wide variety of technologies employed.
These smaller departments were brought into the network as "satellite" users. Their local PCs were connected to the center-point through special CODY RMS software. This allows them to interface with the center-point as though it was their own server. Their data is stored directly at the center-point rather than being passed to it. Now, through the WAN connection, they are able to share their data with other departments throughout the county and, importantly, they are able to perform data searches directly from their desktop PCs." I think it’s important to point out," says Hershey, "that because of special software developed by CODY, the center-point is available to all of our police departments whether they yet share data. They can search the warrants database or they can search to see if there’s any history on a person or vehicle."
Because Criminals Know no Boundaries:
"Criminals do not know boundaries of municipality," says Sgt. Johnson. "We’ve been able to pool all our resources to hopefully recognize that another area may be having a similar problem, such as a pattern of burglaries with the same M.O. Rather than several departments doing their own investigations, they can now work together. The inability to do this before created multiple investigations, probably about the same individual. C.O.B.R.A. has created, in a sense, a county-wide police department without all the hoops and things we would have had to jump through to become one agency."
While the immediate benefits of this approach are obvious — quicker and broader access to valuable incident and investigative information — perhaps best of all is a fostering of cooperation between county government and what had once been 44 friendly but fractionated police departments.
"I’ve seen municipal government for a long time," says Sgt. Johnson. "And this is probably the first time the government at all levels – borough, county and all the other municipalities involved – actually worked together to create a fantastic product. It’s the way it should work."
And while this approach has fostered communication, collaboration and cooperation within the Berks County law enforcement fraternity, its implications are more far reaching. From small-time crooks with more mobility to terror threats and inter-state kidnappings, the need for more open, regionalized sharing of data between agencies is clear. So clear, that the U.S. Attorney General, John Ashcroft, has recently approved the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan, which (among other things) calls on local and county agencies across the nation to link together and form criminal-information sharing networks that will eventually be merged into one unified network. To police departments in Berks County this is old news...they are already there.
For more information please CODY Systems at 610.326.7476 or info@codysystems.com. Also visit CODY on the web at www.codysystems.com.