For the week of May 13, representatives from police departments around the County are in St. Cloud attending training, organized by the Stearns County Sheriff’s Department, on a shared, countywide criminal records system.
Working in partnership with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), the County has implemented a secure computer network between the Law Enforcement Center in St. Cloud and participating area police departments. Instead of each department having their own computer system, this countywide computer network will allow police officers and Sheriff’s deputies to share all sorts of criminal records, such as details on investigations or suspects. Officers will be able to access this criminal records information from their squad cars, their offices, and even from their homes.
Other features of this criminal records system include the ability of deputies and officers to use the laptop computers in their vehicles to pull up mug shots, which will help to identify suspects immediately. Officers can even search the identity of a person by distinguishing characteristics, such as a tattoo, scar, or height and weight.
In addition to allowing officers the opportunity to share countywide criminal records, the system also gives them access to State and Federal criminal databases.
“This system will greatly enhance public safety within Stearns County,” said Stearns County Sheriff Jim Kostreba. “The Sheriff’s Department and police departments will all be sharing records and information, and this will make us all better and more efficient.”
The police departments will receive training this week. Immediately following the training, the Sheriff’s Department and the County’s Information Services Department will go to police departments across the County to begin the rollout of the new criminal records system.
The Stearns County Sheriff’s Department and the St. Cloud Police Department have already implemented the complete law enforcement computer system, which includes Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and laptop computers in squad cars in addition to this shared criminal records system.
“Linking up the area police departments with the Sheriff’s Department and the St. Cloud Police Department’s criminal records database is the final piece in a multiphased project to computerize the area’s law enforcement agencies”, said Stearns County Information Services Director, George McClure. “The County has already installed laptop computers in the squad cars which interface with the County’s CAD system in most of the area police departments. Now the goal is to get their criminal records system in place.”
Almost all of the police departments in the County are taking part in this project. Participating police departments are Melrose, Sartell, Waite Park, Sauk Centre, Richmond, Avon, Albany, Cold Spring, Kimball, Paynesville, St. Joseph and Belgrade.
Funding for this project is being shared between the area police departments, the Sheriff’s office and the BCA.
Stearns County is one of the first counties in the state that has implemented this type of shared law enforcement system.