What A Police Early Intervention System Should Do For Your Agency

Today’s law enforcement agencies face a whole host of new and evolving challenges. However, they also have the benefit of new technology, including software solutions purpose-built just for them. Police early intervention systems are one such tool. While most offer the same basic functionality for conduct monitoring and use of force tracking, the right solution will offer much more that benefits agencies and officers alike.

When you’re selecting any new software system, doing your research is a must. What else should an early intervention system offer law enforcement agencies and why should agencies care?

Early Intervention Should Support Accountability At All Levels Of Your Agency

• Use-of-force tracking
• Automatic behavior pattern alerts
• Behavioral threshold alerts for possible intervention
• Customizable reporting
• Unlimited storage of conduct-related data to create digital employee files

Your early intervention system should replace outdated, manual procedures with automatic processes, and be supported by features such as alerts triggered by customizable thresholds and chain-of-command notifications. This crucial functionality helps ensure every officer, including leadership, is held to the same standards of professionalism and conduct.

When it comes time for performance reviews, having a comprehensive record of all noteworthy conduct for each officer can also further promote accountability by making sure nothing slips through the cracks. To facilitate this, your early intervention solutions should offer built-in reporting functionality that puts data in easily reviewable formats.

2. Emphasize A Positive Workplace Culture

• Recognition flags to notify the respective leaders of a high performing achievement or general patterns of positive behavior
• Functionality that facilitates supervisor and peer-to-peer recognition
• Ability to track progress on agency goals and objectives
• Confidential peer reporting of negative and positive conduct

While we all strive to embody exemplary performance, it’s mistakes that we tend to focus on the most. Early intervention systems can counterbalance this by providing a repository to record kudos, commendations, and other notes regarding extraordinary conduct. When performance review time rolls around, these records ensure supervisors have a holistic view of every officer.

Peers are often an even better source of performance information than supervisors. An early intervention system should make it easy for colleagues to submit reports on noteworthy behavior, both good and bad.

Reporting comes into play when considering agency culture as well. When supervisors and agency leadership can easily view and identify trends over time, they can determine if their agency is meeting culture and conduct-related goals and objectives.

3. Champion Officer Wellness

• Critical incident exposure tracking
• Wellness threshold alerts for possible intervention
• Ability to log significant dates and set alerts of upcoming anniversaries
• Set notifications of follow up actions after critical incidents

While huge strides have been made to prioritize mental and physical wellness for officers, there will always be certain risks inherent to law enforcement.

Your early intervention system should make it easier to identify those in need of help by offering functionality to record critical incident exposures, set notifications to follow up in the future, track significant dates and anniversaries, and set wellness threshold alerts.

4. Boost Retention Efforts

• Functionality to facilitate and encourage employee feedback
• Confidential reporting of conduct-related concerns

There are a variety of risk factors that can negatively impact officer morale at your agency. Your early intervention system should be a powerful tool to combat these issues.

An officer who feels valued by their agency will have improved morale and pride in the job they do, especially when they can easily submit feedback or concerns through their early intervention solution. Feeling seen and heard goes a long way to prevent issues that lead to officers transferring departments or leaving the profession entirely. Positive morale can also be a powerful tool when recruiting new officers, further mitigating the impact of staffing shortages.

Support Your Officers With An Early Intervention System

Whether it’s support mental or physical wellness, boosting retention and recruiting efforts, or saving careers through timely intervention, the right early intervention system should provide just as much benefit to officers as it does to your agency.

Vector Solutions’ suite of industry-leading software solutions for law enforcement includes training management systems, online training courses, FTO/PTO/CTO/live skill evaluations, academy automation, and an early intervention and conduct management system.

To learn more about how Vector Solutions’ early intervention solutions can benefit your agency, please request a demo today.