County Commissioners hear update on countywide police database

From Jim O’Neal at WITZ News

The Dubois County Commissioners heard an update from Dubois County Sheriff Donny Lampert this morning (Monday) on the implementation of the Interact system for law enforcement agencies in Dubois County.

The reporting system being considered is developed and managed by InterAct™ Public Safety, a provider of public safety incident response and management software. Currently InterAct has over 800 clients nationwide on the system including the Indiana State Police.

Interact is a software solution that allows police departments to share information entered into a database. The system reduces the time it takes to process accidents and traffic tickets and features the ability to connect to a database via laptops, tablet computers, and smartphones. In effect an officer investigating a crime or incident in one jurisdiction in the county would have access to the investigations throughout the county and even the Indiana State Police.

The police departments in the county view the system as a positive step in their ability to better serve the public.

Dubois County is close to implementing the system with the County picking up a portion of the cost with funds from the Law Enforcement Continuing Education Fund that accumulates with fines collected from all area law enforcement agencies.

According to Sheriff Lampert it’s a matter of getting the T’s crossed and I’s dotted, and then making sure the funding is there and more or less they’re ready to go.

On Nov. 28, 2011 a large contingent of the entire county’s law enforcement community met in Jasper to discuss the use of the fund to pay for the implementation of InterAct. (Story Here)

The cost of the implementation of the system is approximately $120,000 but InterAct has a grant available for the mobile portion of the system that lowers the overall cost down to approximately $112,000. If the continuing education money is allocated for this, a balance of approximately $8000 remains.

Former Jasper Mayor Bill Schmitt recommended at the time that Jasper pay half of the remaining balance and the county the other half. He stated he felt this was the correct course of action as the City of Jasper had the greatest amount to gain from the implementation of the program. Schmitt said, “I don’t think it is fair to lay the burden of the initial cost of this program on the smaller towns in the county.”

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