Description

The difficulty that faces police agency managers who wish to upgrade or improve their computer capabilities is probably best illustrated by the failure of the Supervision Management and Recidivist Tracking (SMART) system in Seattle over the six years from its inception to its demise. SMART had its origins in collaboration between Redmond, Washington, police, and local corrections officers, who together created a paper-based system to better track ex-convicts. Prison officials notified the Redmond police when a convict was being released, and the police visited these convicts to let them know they were being watched. If the police suspected a parole violation, the officer prepared a notecard with information about the encounter and sent it to the individual’s parole officer. The program was soon replicated in other local jurisdictions.  In 1995, this paper-based program attracted the attention of supervisors of the Homicide Investigation Tracking System (HITS). The HITS program was designed by a former detective who investigated several serial murder cases in Washington State. The system—which used databases and investigative personnel to analyze crime data and patterns—was designed to track information about murders, rapes, and other major crimes. HITS program managers presented the idea of combining the Redmond and HITS programs to representatives of the Washington State Legislature to secure state funding to computerize the Redmond and HITS programs to create SMART.  The state legislature budgeted $850,000 to start the program and subsequently another $869,000 to maintain it, directing the funds through the state Attorney General’s office. Over the six years from approval of funding to the abandonment of the project, the position of project director changed several times due to retirement, resignations, and loss of software designers to corporations that offered higher salaries. Members of the SMART project have maintained that members of the Attorney General’s office associated with the project were removed from the project through the elimination of their jobs or requests for them to resign. The removals were stimulated by their inquiring about the funding and suggesting that the funds were spent in other areas of government. Advocates of the program who were disheartened by these developments allege mishandling of funds by the Attorney General’s office and demanded an accounting. The attorney general’s office expressed concern that developers had difficulties with the complexities of the SMART project and that there was a general ambivalence and lack of cooperation within a broad spectrum of law enforcement.  According to the Attorney General’s office, the funding shortfall that hampered SMART’s development stemmed from salary and rent increases and the loss of general fund financing. At the same time, spokespersons for the office claimed that it would not be possible to track where all of the SMART funding dollars went. The Attorney General’s office has claimed that SMART is ready to go into operation, and that it would be running if the state had not suffered a budgetary shortfall in the previous year.  Even if SMART is ready to go, it cannot do so until funding is restored. In the meantime, Washington police are developing a similar program with the State Corrections Department. Yet as some sources stated, it will never be as effective as SMART would have been (Kamb & Galloway, 2004; Morgan, 2002). Do you believe that the HITS and SMART programs (or either program on its own) are worthy of funding? Explain your reasoning. Drawing on what you have learned about police agencies and politics, and about the difficulties police agencies face in upgrading technology, describe what you would have recommended regarding the appropriation and management of the SMART program funding. In your view, could any of the funding concerns have been prevented? If so, which ones? How? Budget shortfalls and rechanneling of funding for current and proposed projects are realities of government. How would you attempt to regain or secure new funding for SMART? What leadership strategies would you recommend? Your completed final paper should be 4-5 pages. Must be submitted as a Word document.