States of Jersey officers get ‘smarter’ on the beat

It is the latest phase of States of Jersey Police’s digital policing initiative SMARTpolice, designed to provide “improved and efficient police work” through the use of advanced technologies.

The force has signed a three-year contract with communications provider Motorola Solutions to deploy its Pronto suite of mobile policing applications that will allow police officers to greatly improve efficiency by replacing paperwork activities with automated mobile processes.

Pronto is already used by 20 UK forces and States of Jersey Police will be the first force outside mainland UK to use the software.

“Our goal was to get officers to spend more time out in the community, and less time with paperwork at the police station,” said Deputy Chief Officer Julian Blazeby, States of Jersey Police. “With Motorola Solutions we believe we have found a partner with proven experience in public safety mobile solutions and high flexibility in solving for our specific needs.”

Pronto is built for police forces to replace inefficient paper-based activities, such as witness statements, stop and search, and Fixed Penalty Notices, with intuitive digital forms on mobile devices. It also provides mobile access to local and national databases for person and vehicle registration checks. It will serve as States of Jersey Police’s mobile platform for building a more efficient and effective mobile police force.

States of Jersey Police says its SMARTpolice project will enable the force to “more effectively address crime, and more efficiently serve and protect the local community while reducing overall costs and budget”.

Motorola Solutions says Pronto has a proven track record of “generating more meaningful police engagement, simple and higher quality processes, improved collaboration as well as substantial cost reductions”.

One Pronto-enabled force has made an estimated £7 million in efficiency savings through this modernisation of its processes, as well reducing its officers’ administration time by two hours a shift. Another force’s use of biometric applications allows its officers to run fingerprint checks against national database records in less than a minute while in the field.

Phil Jefferson, vice-president for Western Europe and North Africa, and country manager UK and Ireland, Motorola Solutions, says it was “proud” to partner with States of Jersey on “the mission of digitising police work”.

“This deployment demonstrates Pronto’s flexibility as a platform supporting police forces of different sizes and needs,” he added.