Since 1864, the writing and typing of official crime reports has been an essential but frustrating aspect of the job for many police officers. Report writing kept officers from hours of patrolling for 106 years, before new technologies lightened the load.
Ansaphone service operators type recorded incident reports, 1978. Image PRNeg1978-SL4323d Courtesy of the Queensland Police Museum
In November 1970, in an effort to save officers from crime report writing, the “Ansafone” tape service recording system became active in the Brisbane Metropolitan area. This service allowed night patrol police crews to dictate by telephone, criminal offence reports received by them during the course of their patrols. The taped criminal offence reports were then typed at the Police Communication Centre and distributed in accordance with a pre-arranged process. In the first seven months of the Ansafone service a total of 700 criminal offence reports were recorded and typed.
The Ansaphone section of the Information Bureau, which was located in old Queensland Police Headquarters in Makerston Street, 1986. Image PM2880 Courtesy of the Queensland Police Museum.
By 1978 some 15,251 incident reports were handled by the four Ansafone service operators, which saved about 5,000 hours for active police patrolling. In 1981 Ansafone operators processed 394 reports per week and the service was extended to Beenleigh, Ipswich and Redcliffe. By June 1986 operators were typing 630 incident reports per week but in subsequent years the number of reports being made this way decreased. This was probably due to the outdating of equipment and the difficulty posed when trying to access filed crime reports.
In 1992, a pilot version of the database product called the Crime Reporting Information System for Police (CRISP) was successfully trialled. A modern version of ‘Ansafone”, CRISP provided quick access to crime details to all police through a central data collection system. The centralised database also allowed regional and local police to access up to date and comprehensive profiles of reported crime in their own areas. In 1993, the Information Management Section was established and by June 1994 CRISP was fully implemented in the Metropolitan South, South Eastern and Metropolitan North regions and in the State Crime Operations and Operations Support commands.
A CRISP operator enters a crime report into the system, 1995. Image courtesy of the Queensland Police Museum.
CRISP was touted as a system that would save police officers 213,000 hours of typing per annum. Between June 1993 and June 1994, the CRISP system processed an average of 575 crimes per day. By 1995, CRISP had been implemented state-wide and was staffed by 46 operators. Over the next 15 years staffing levels grew to 140 to cope with the work load. The section changed its name to the Police Assistance Centre in 2007. In that year CRISP was replaced by the next generation Queensland Police Records and Information Management Exchange system (QPrime) and the section boasted 200 skilled operators.
Police Assistance operators are highly skilled and need to be able to adapt to a constantly changing informational environment, 2010. Image courtesy of the Queensland Police Museum.
Policelink is now the primary contact point for the Queensland Police Service. Policelink was introduced in 2010 as a central contact point across the state, to enhance the ability of the Queensland Police Service to respond in a professional and timely manner. The contact centre is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. By phoning 131 444, you will speak with a Policelink Client Service Officer who can assist to generate a non-urgent property incident report, provide answers to general police enquiries, among other functions. Policelink enhances the services the Queensland Police can provide to the State by allowing Police Officers more time to perform operational duties, improving front line response times. (https://www.police.qld.gov.au/programs/policelink/default.htm)
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This information has been supplied by the Queensland Police Museum from the best resources available at the time of writing.
The Police Museum is open 9am to 4pm Monday to Thursday and 10am to 3pm on the last Sunday of the month (Feb-Nov) and is located on the Ground Floor of Police Headquarters at 200 Roma Street, Brisbane. Contact: E: museum@police.qld.gov.au
“FROM the VAULT – Crime Reporting” by the Queensland Police Service is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (BY) 2.5 Australia Licence. Permissions may be available beyond the scope of this licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/au/legalcode