Advocate Technology in Policing

For nearly forty years, policymakers within law enforcement, commercially motivated interest groups, and scholars have made the case for an augmented implementation of technology in policing, particularly information technologies. The prominent discourse is efficiency and cost-effectiveness of operations, as technology is hypothesized to improve the quality of law enforcement on a wide range of outcomes and outputs. Prima facie, technology can revolutionize law enforcement; ample examples indicate where this is the case. Research areas in support of technology in policing include computers, GPS-based technologies, video recording of crime scenes, and forensic evidence, such as DNA testing. Our collective view should be that the pertinent question is one of scale: why not more? Why are information technologies not more pronounced in law enforcement? What stopped the information revolution from establishing a more prominent place in policing?