In recent years, especially with COVID-19 interrupting lives and policing operations, Queensland Police (Australia) have been taking a proactive look at digital solutions to address demand.1 Data-driven policing does not just mean using data to better target and focus police response and effort, but also using data tools to streamline and improve policing and the criminal justice system. As an example, a recent trial project in Ipswich Police District saw a significant reduction in outstanding warrants by sending a simple text message to wanted persons. This strategy not only reduced the number of outstanding warrants but significantly reduced the amount of policing hours required to address this policing function, without increasing the amount of time named persons remained at large.
The Ipswich Policing District is located just west of Queensland’s capital city, Brisbane. The police district covers approximately 6,000 sq. km (2,300 sq. miles) and includes a mix of suburban and rural locations.2 Ipswich has a growing population of 213,000 people that is policed by approximately 340 sworn officers in varying roles. Ipswich Police sought to use email to SMS technology to contact named persons, advising them of the outstanding matter while tracking the number of warrants finalized and the time taken to finalize each one. The strategy focused on warrants that were primarily administrative in nature and excluded warrants likely to result in additional custodial sentences.
The most common types of warrants issued in Queensland are Police Powers and Responsibilities Act (PPRA), Bail Act, and Return to Prison (RTP). PPRA warrants are typically issued after a person is served with a written notice, by police, to attend court and fails to appear as required. Bail Act warrants are issued when a person is arrested by police and bailed to attend court at a later date or directed by the court to appear at a later date and fails to do so. RTP warrants are issued when a person is on supervised parole and fails to meet the conditions of their parole. RTP warrants result in the person being incarcerated for a period of time.
Both PPRA and Bail Act warrants are issued as a means to bring offenders back before the courts to address their outstanding matters. Over the last five years, approximately 18,300 Bail and PPRA warrants were issued by the courts, naming residents within the Ipswich Policing District. On average, 3,600 warrants were issued each year, requiring significant effort on the part of local police to locate these persons. Once the individuals have been found, police are required to take the named persons back to a police station or watchhouse to provide them with a new court date. This laborious process represents a considerable logistical challenge on limited police resources. Ipswich Police sought to address this by using email to SMS technology to provide advice to people about how they could finalize their matter at a time convenient to them, as opposed to being arrested by police at an undetermined time.
Email to SMS technology provides a cost-effective and efficient service that allows emails to be converted and delivered to an individual’s mobile phone as a text message. The system notifies the user of the message receipt status. Notifications typically advise if the message was received by the selected mobile number or if the message failed to send. A “failed to send” message typically occurs when a mobile phone number is entered incorrectly or the number has been disconnected. Message recipients are able to reply to their messages via SMS, which are converted to an email and sent to the system user, allowing immediate two-way communication. The Queensland Police Service adopted the email to SMS technology in 2019 with immediate, positive results. The system has been used as a communication pathway for domestic violence–related matters, missing persons, welfare checks, appointments/inquiries, fuel/petrol drive offs, victim notification, crime prevention, and general information.
The concept for this strategy was proposed based on engagements by frontline police with persons wanted on the targeted “administrative” warrants. It was observed that named persons were often from low socioeconomic backgrounds who reported that they simply forgot or did not know about their court date. However, one of the primary concerns officers held with this strategy is that it may have a backfire effect. That is, notifying wanted persons would result in them using the notification to actively avoid detection, putting community safety at risk. To assess this, a trial was established to compare the email to SMS strategy with a “business as usual” (BAU) approach.
The trial was completed over a five-month period commencing August 2021. Over this period, the trial tracked 626 unique wanted persons. Approximately 50 percent of those identified for inclusion in the trial were randomly assigned to receive a tailored email to SMS message while the remainder received a BAU response. The tailored text message identified the date the warrant was issued, the court that issued the warrant, the unique crime report number, and a law enforcement contact person. The message template read as follows:
Good morning John, a warrant was issued 01/12/21 in your name by Ipswich Magistrates Court. QP12345678910 refers. We acknowledge there are a number of reasons why this can occur. To resolve this matter at a time convenient to you please attend or contact the Ipswich Magistrates Court on (07) 1234 5678. Regards, Senior Constable John SMITH Ipswich Police Station (07)12345786
Staff were required to send an SMS message to the named person and record the relevant data to assess the outcomes. The trial tracked each named person to identify how and when their warrants were finalized. The project team measured the number of warrants issued, the number of warrants finalized, and the number of days that elapsed before a warrant was finalized. Text message confirmation receipts or declined notifications were also recorded.
Confirmation of message receipt, from the email to SMS system, was received for 147 (46 percent) of the 315 persons assigned to the message group. At the conclusion of the trial, 81 percent of message recipients had their warrants finalized. However, 76 percent of the entire message group finalized their warrants, regardless of whether they received the message or not. Of the 311 persons assigned to the BAU response, only 62 percent had their warrants finalized. These results identified that the strategy adopted was very effective.
The true success, however, came from the number of persons having their warrants recalled. That is, they contacted the court directly to sort the outstanding matter out, without police involvement. Overall, 27 percent of the persons assigned to receive the message had their warrants recalled. However, this value increased to 32 percent for persons confirmed to have received the SMS message. These values are significantly higher than the 18 percent observed in the BAU group and represents considerable benefits for both police and wanted persons. For police, officer hours were reduced as recalled warrants require no further action. For the wanted person, the opportunity to finalize their outstanding matter by directly engaging the court reduces the likelihood of attending a police facility and in some instances being charged for failing to appear at their originally appointed court date. Additionally, despite receiving notification of an outstanding warrant, there was no difference in the time taken to finalize warrants between the message and BAU groups, suggesting that there were no adverse impacts of the early notification.
The number of officer hours saved as result of this strategy is considerable. Pretrial, the average time for police to execute a warrant was 1 hour and 50 minutes. Assuming two police officers execute each warrant, this equates to an approximate cost of $177 (AUD) per wanted person. On average, it took the trial team just under 5 minutes per person to send out the message and record the relevant data to assess the trial. Based on an administrative officer wage, this equates to an approximate cost of $6.50 per person. Put another way, for every 100 persons handing themselves in, following the receipt of a text message, 183 officer hours or $17,070 are saved. A considerable cost savings and a highly relevant reduction of officer hours given the demand and recruiting challenges currently faced by law enforcement agencies around the world.
The results from this trial also demonstrate that a greater use of digital technologies, in the right way, has the potential to reduce policing demands and provide financial savings. Adapting this methodology to other policing activities represents additional opportunities for innovation within policing services. Furthermore, the simplicity of email to SMS systems is perfect for policing organizations when obtaining information, making appointments, or contacting offenders as it opens an immediate two-way communication between the sender and the recipient. Given the current demands faced by policing organizations around the world today, methodologies that maximize the use of officer hours must be identified and implemented to achieve positive community outcomes. Being data driven in the 21st century is not just a matter of storing and gathering information, but also using it in innovative ways to improve the police function, streamline business models, and free officers to spend more time on frontline activity. Using data that are already in the possession of the police service is a return on the initial investment that gathered the information in the first place and, in this example, shows that it can be used to generate huge cost savings. d
Notes:
1Kyler Nielson, Yan Zhang, and Jason Ingram, “The Impact of COVID-19 on Police Officer Activities,” Journal of Criminal Justice 82 (2022): 101943.
2Queensland Police Service, “Southern Region,” October 2021.
Please cite as
Brett Collyer and Darren Green, “Improving Demand Using Digital Solutions: SMS Contact with Wanted Persons Reduces Outstanding Warrants” Police Chief Online, April 26, 2023.
