Martoccia
The Bartholomew County commissioners on Monday approved an agreement to pay for a dictation software that uses artificial intelligence to help law enforcement officers fill out incident reports.
The commissioners approved an agreement for $15,114 to pay for the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Office’s usage of Police Narratives AI over the next year.
Chief Deputy John Martoccia said the sheriff’s office been trying out the enhanced dictation software for the past six months on a limited basis and found it helped boost efficiency.
Martoccia said that officers will be able to dictate details of what happened in a given incident, and the software will turn that into the required structured format for an incident report.
Officers will still need to proofread the reports, but Martoccia said what previously took an hour would now take about 15 minutes, getting officers “back on the street.”
Martoccia explained incident reports contain a narrative of what the officer observed and documented in addition to the basics of names, date of birth, date of the incident, etc. The deputy may dictate the information or type the information with the software organizing it into the report. The software also will ask a question if it anticipates something is missing, such as “did you read and advise rights?”
He emphasized that all of the information must be proofread by the deputy before it is approved, and the process is a “closed system” meaning it is not accessible outside the department on the web.
The sheriff’s office involved the county IT department and Bartholomew County Prosecutor’s Office before moving forward with software, county officials said, adding that usage of the software is in line with all of applicable regulatory requirements.
