TRENTON
-- The State Police and the New Jersey
Judiciary have completed a successful
pilot project in which Troopers, using
technology that gave them direct access
to municipal court traffic-related warrants
via their in-car computers, identified
more than 5,000 motorists with outstanding
warrants, Attorney General David Samson
announced today.
Samson said that, because of the success
of the pilot program, the State will now
be equipping all State Police vehicles
with the wireless search technology, and
will be making it available to municipal
police departments whose patrol cars are
equipped with Mobile Data Computers.
According to the Attorney General, the
four-month pilot program enabled Troopers
to search more than 12.5 million electronic
traffic ticket records stored in the Judiciary's
centralized Automated Traffic System by
using the Mobile Data Computers installed
in their patrol vehicles. The project
was a cooperative effort involving State
Police, the Office of Information Technology,
and the Judiciary's Information Technology
Office and Municipal Court Services Division.
"This joint effort will have an immediate
impact on the work of municipal courts,"
said Judge Richard J. Williams, administrative
director of the courts. "Providing law
enforcement officers with real-time access
to outstanding warrants helps to ensure
that judges' rulings are respected, and
that enforcement is carried out quickly
and efficiently."
Samson explained that, previously, Troopers
who wanted to check for municipal court
warrant information during a motor vehicle
stop had to radio a police dispatcher
who would then conduct a statewide search
of the Judiciary's ATS records using a
computer terminal at dispatch headquarters.
Such a process can be time-consuming and
can result in dispatchers having to juggle
tasks, he explained.
An estimated 7,500 municipal police patrol
vehicles are equipped with Mobile Data
Computers statewide. Use of the new ATS
wireless search capability from those
vehicles is expected to generate a total
of more than 2.5 million wireless look-ups
annually by New Jersey law enforcement.
Because the Judiciary's ATS Electronic
Warrant System contains warrants issued
by all 536 of New Jersey's municipal courts,
the following benefits are expected from
statewide availability of the new system:
-
More municipal court warrants will be
executed by law enforcement, and more
fugitives will be apprehended.
-
Traffic safety will improve by better
ensuring that drivers with a past history
of not responding to traffic summonses
will be detected and apprehended.
-
Duplicate searches into the ATS will
be eliminated, and dispatchers will
be freed up to complete other information-gathering
tasks.
Development
of the computer programming required to
operate the new data search process was
funded by a federal grant. Since the inception
of the pilot project in July of this year,
State Police have conducted a total of
338,089 automated look-ups using the new
process and identified 5,174 motorists
with outstanding warrants.
"The use of this system will enable police
officers to obtain more complete background
information on motorists they've stopped
without the time-consuming 'back-and-forth'
that can occur between the field and the
dispatch center," Attorney General Samson
said. "This project is an excellent example
of inter-agency cooperation, and of using
advances in technology to more effectively
perform a vital law enforcement function."
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