Online Reporting (Details)

Name of province/ territory:

Quebec

City/ Region:

Montreal/Quebec

Description of Initiative:

Online Reporting offers citizens the possibility of filing a police report online. Only certain property offences are admissible, such as simple thefts, simple mischief and lost property. Occurrences related to personal identification, and therefore information-sensitive material, such as passports, citizenship cards, licence plates, etc., are not admissible.

Initiative Key Objectives:

The key objectives were as follows:

  • free up police officers for patrol;
  • offer a time- and cost-effective way for people to file police reports;
  • use the Internet as a tool to reach out to the community; and
  • reduce traffic in neighbourhood police stations.

Section Responsible for Implementation:

M-IRIS project, Technologies Division

Key Contact:

Pascal Lacquement
pascal.lacquement@spvm.qc.ca

Groups/ Agencies/ Key Partners Involved:

  • N/A

Level of Involvement (consultative - information sharing) and/or cooperative - direct involvement):

N/A

Amount of Time Initiative has been in Place:

This initiative has been in place since September 23, 2013.

Reason for Undertaking the Initiative:

The main goal was to free up police officers from administrative tasks so that they would have more time to be out on patrol. Before this initiative, these types of reports were taken by police officers and civilians via telephone. Now, staff validate these reports online.

Resources Required to Implement this Initiative:

The costs associated with implementation were for software acquisition and five years of post-implementation support, and human resources.

Method of Implementation:

Tests were done by the police officers who were taking reports via telephone, and then the initiative was implemented.

Key Outcomes of the Initiative:

The initiative achieved all the key objectives. The SPVM is running a pilot whereby simple "hit-and-run accident" and "missing person" reports from certain institutions, such as hospitals, can be added. It will also be adding types of property offence reports.

Availability of a Communication Strategy:

Yes

Key Messages used to Publicize the Initiative:

The key messages were as follows:

  • you can now complete a police report without having to go a police station;
  • use our online services to file a police report; and
  • by filing your police report online you are helping police officers in your neighbourhood spend more time on your streets.

Forms of Evaluation by which the Initiative will be Assessed:

  • internal (in-house)
  • quantitative

Evaluation Completed or Community Feedback Received:

No

Summary of the Outcomes:

The outcomes were the following:

  • we receive regular feedback from the officers that validate the reports;
  • user feedback polls and "cost versus savings" evaluations will be done in the future (the initiative has only been in use for five months and we need more data); and
  • police officers who verify these reports have to make corrections for occurrences that were labelled as "damage/mischief to a vehicle" instead of "hit-and-run."

Summary of the Performance Measure Data Collected:

  • The application has a built-in indicator for police officer time saved.
  • Data is gathered on the number of reports made and the number of reports rejected by a police officer.
  • Data includes a breakdown of the number of reports per incident type (per day, per week, per month and "up to now").
  • User feedback is also gathered.

Economics of Policing Pillars:

Further Details:

N/A

Additional Comments or Suggestions:

N/A

Record Entry Date:

2015-03-01

Date modified: