It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. A picture of a footprint in the mud or snow after a burglary, a battered and bruised face after a domestic incident or of damaged cars at the scene of a traffic accident can all tell a story. And when it comes to giving evidence in court and pictures like these are submitted as evidence there may well be some truth in this.

And it’s not just about the convictions, photographic evidence can save time and money as well. When the evidence is there for all to see in the form of photographs conviction rates go up and court costs go down.

Research into domestic abuse cases found that the presence of digital photographic evidence increased the likelihood of receiving a sentence that included custody by five times. In domestic abuse cases 35% of defendants normally plead guilty, but when there is photographic evidence this goes up with 65% of defendants pleading guilty. This can lead to an 84% reduction in court costs for a common assault trial.

Such is the importance of capturing photographic evidence that a criminal justice research paper proposes that “one way to ensure that evidence of a minor assault has been preserved is to equip patrol officers with digital cameras.”

But it’s not necessarily as simple as just submitting a photograph as evidence. The difference between a getting a guilty or not guilty verdict could come down to being able to prove when and where the image was taken - and that the image has not been tampered with in any way.

This is where the MTP6750 camera enabled TETRA radio comes in. The auto-focus 5MP camera on the MTP6750 radio simplifies the task of capturing and storing photographic intelligence. As well as being part of a Police officer’s everyday equipment, using the Integrated Terminal Management System (iTM). and the Photograph and Intelligence Communication System (PICS) every image taken can be given a Digital Fingerprint with the time and date, location, Cell ID, Radio ID and Active Talkgroup ID.This meta-data is auto-generated for each image - enabling secure authentication of the image. Once the radio is docked, images can be automatically uploaded to a secure image database using iTM PICS. The Digital Fingerprint can then be used to authenticate the image when it is submitted as evidence.

Take a look at the TETRA MTP6000 SMARTER VIDEO which shows how vital evidence can be recorded.

And for more about secure authentication of images take a look at iTM Photograph and Intelligence Communication System (PICS).

To read more about the use of imaging as part of the police officers tool kit you can download the report ‘The Need and Case for Digital Photography in Frontline Policing.’

Sources:
Garcia, C.A.(2003),” Digital photographic evidence and the adjudication of domestic violence cases” Journal of Criminal Justice 31 (2003) 579– 587
Crown Prosecution Service (2010-2011). “Violence against Women and Girls Crime Report”

Richard Bennett is Senior Manager, Solutions Marketing EMEA.

Richard is on LinkedIn at uk.linkedin.com/pub/richard-bennett/1/19b/238

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