State-of-the-Art Evidence Management

• POPULATION 30,167
• CLIENT SINCE 2017
• SOLUTIONS USED Public Safety Pro suite, Enforcement Mobile, Enterprise Corrections, Enterprise Justice suite
• PROFILE Austin County is located in southeastern Texas, about 50 miles outside of Houston. As one of the oldest counties in Texas, it was established before Texas was officially incorporated as a state and was the location of the first provisional state capital.

CHALLENGE

The Austin County Sheriff’s Office was using an outdated evidence management solution that created several inefficiencies.

The software was disconnected from the agency’s other solutions, requiring duplicate data entry. Users had to complete a separate process to check for evidence associated with a case. Once an inquiry was submitted, the agency’s evidence custodian was the only user with access to the system, creating another bottleneck. The system was also incompatible with National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) reporting requirements.

The physical evidence storage lacked structure and consistency, and organizational best practices were not built into the outdated software’s processes.

SOLUTION

To increase efficiency in their evidence management system and adhere to NIBRS requirements, the agency implemented the Property Room module in Tyler Technologies’ Records Pro solution.

RESULTS

The software solution allowed the Austin County Sheriff’s Office to overhaul its evidence management and implement a state-of-the-art system. The agency experienced the following benefits:

• Saved Time: Time spent logging evidence was reduced from about two hours daily to just minutes by eliminating duplicate data entry.
• Reduced Costs: By utilizing the Property Room module in its Records Pro solution rather than paying for a separate software solution, the agency experienced cost savings of nearly $6,000 per year.
• Increased Efficiency: The physical evidence storage process was also streamlined. When applicable, physical evidence is stored alongside corresponding body camera footage housed on a CD. The evidence is kept in a storage bin labeled with a unique tag number generated and printed by the system, and the bin’s location is recorded in the system.
• Improved Investigations: When investigations require access to evidence, this sophisticated and organized system allows them to locate physical evidence and the corresponding case data quickly and easily.
• Achieved NIBRS Compliance: Because the evidence information is tied to corresponding case data, the data complies with NIBRS reporting requirements and the agency was able to achieve compliance.
• Selected for Task Force: As the regional High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) task force, the Austin County Sheriff’s Office’s state-of-the-art system now enables them to process drug trafficking cases for high-profile agencies like the Texas Highway Patrol, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), and the U.S. Marshals Service.