{"id":4659,"date":"2012-03-21T15:35:20","date_gmt":"2012-03-21T21:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/news\/?p=4659"},"modified":"2019-09-16T13:26:55","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T19:26:55","slug":"mcallen-police-department-reduces-dismissed-tickets-by-half","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/news\/mcallen-police-department-reduces-dismissed-tickets-by-half\/","title":{"rendered":"McAllen Police Department Reduces Dismissed Tickets by Half"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>E-Citation Produces More Legible Tickets, Increases Revenue<\/h3>\n<p><strong>About McAllen Police Department<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The McAllen Police Department (MPD) serves the McAllen, Texas, metro area, with a population of about 130,000. Just five miles from the U.S.-Mexico border and the Mexican city of Reynosa (with a population of 500,000), the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s size can grow by 200,000 to 300,000 commuters each day. The MPD employs 272 sworn officers and approximately 380 total employees.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Challenge<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Like many police departments, MPD had long issued hand-written paper tickets to offenders. The manual process left room for errors in two places:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Point of issuance\u00e2\u20ac\u201dHandwritten ticket information could be incorrect or illegible.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Municipal court\u00e2\u20ac\u201dAdministrators occasionally entered dates, locations, license numbers, or license plates incorrectly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more-->\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If we have incorrect information, then the tickets are thrown out. We were losing revenue,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Lt. Robert Eason of MPD.<\/p>\n<p>Across 20,000 citations per year, about 10 percent had to be invalidated due to errors of some sort. Beyond lost revenue, the department struggled with other ramifications of a paper-based approach. Citations were not in the court systems for two to three days, and paper copies were quickly filling a 15&#8242; x 25&#8242; storage room.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When exploring <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/solutions\/industry-solutions\/government\/state-local\/ecitation.htm\">e-citation solutions<\/a>, MPD connected with a Zebra partner that provides mobile applications for law enforcement and businesses.<\/p>\n<p>The department chose an electronic citation solution that includes mobile software, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/solutions\/industry-solutions\/government\/state-local\/ecitation.htm\">Motorola MC75<\/a> handheld devices, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/zebra\/zebra-barcode-printers.htm\">Zebra Technologies printers<\/a>, all connected together wirelessly.<\/p>\n<p>MPD road-tested a couple of different <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/cats\/barcode-printers\/mobile.htm\">mobile printers<\/a>, beginning with a pilot with its motorcycle officers. One printer, which uses thermal paper, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stand up to the hot and humid Texas border conditions. After baking a while on hot cars, the paper turned brown and became unreadable.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When we tested Zebra printers, the paper and print quality were much higher, and we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have any problems reading tickets even when they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been sitting in the sun,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eason said.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, the department has expanded e-citation to its vehicle officers. With the software, MPD decides which fields and what standing information to print on each ticket, such as how to pay or contest the citation. In MPD\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s case, citation instructions print in both English and Spanish for the multi-ethnic population of the area.<\/p>\n<p>When officers encounter unlicensed drivers, they also have the option of capturing and sending a photo of the individual as a means of identification in the absence of proof of name, date of birth, or address.<\/p>\n<p>All of the data that the officers enter for each citation on handheld devices is automatically transmitted back to the court\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s records system, thereby eliminating duplicate data entry. Officers also easily print the citations on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/zebra\/zebra-portable-label-printers.htm\">Zebra mobile printer<\/a> to hand the offender.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We can dedicate more of the ticket to the information that offenders need, such as court hours,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eason said.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/cats\/portable-data-terminals\/\">handheld devices<\/a> automatically query the offender\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name against McAllen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s active local warrant list and inform the officer immediately if the offender is wanted. At once, this increases officer safety and the possibility of apprehension, thereby clearing more outstanding warrants.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Results<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>MPD officers and the McAllen court both have responded enthusiastically to e-citation. Officers issue citations more quickly and accurately, which reduces the time they spend roadside with each traffic stop.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Once officers are proficient with e-citation, they now issue citations faster than with written tickets,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eason said.<\/p>\n<p>The court system has a record of each citation within a few hours. Often that means offenders can take care of the ticket the same day. A bigger business impact is that McAllen court staff saves hours in the day by bypassing manual data entry.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A couple of data entry people were shifted to other areas. Now they are working on revenue collection versus data entry. For the taxpayers of McAllen, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good news story,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eason said.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the police department reduces its paper costs. Before, MPD printed new tickets anytime wording changed. Now, the department changes the design and text as needed, with the flexibility to print tickets of any length necessary.<\/p>\n<p>At MPD, tickets must be kept for a minimum of two years. As e-citation expands to the entire police force, MPD will no longer add paper tickets to its physical storage. Instead of running out of storage space over time, MPD eventually will eliminate the need for physical ticket storage altogether. Plus, the e-citations are easily searchable in the Web-based software.<\/p>\n<p>But the real return on investment comes from the legibility of citations. Offenders can more easily read their copies of tickets, substantially cutting the number of invalidated tickets.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tickets are more legible and hence less likely to be thrown out. We have reduced the pool of dismissed tickets by half,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eason said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153With more readable tickets, we capture thousands in additional revenue each year.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>E-Citation Produces More Legible Tickets, Increases Revenue About McAllen Police Department The McAllen Police Department (MPD) serves the McAllen, Texas, metro area, with a population of about 130,000. Just five miles from the U.S.-Mexico border and the Mexican city of Reynosa (with a population of 500,000), the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s size can grow by 200,000 to 300,000 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[135],"tags":[249,99,214,112,101,13],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>McAllen Police Department Reduces Dismissed Tickets by Half - Barcoding News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/news\/mcallen-police-department-reduces-dismissed-tickets-by-half\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"McAllen Police Department Reduces Dismissed Tickets by Half - Barcoding News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"E-Citation Produces More Legible Tickets, Increases Revenue About McAllen Police Department The McAllen Police Department (MPD) serves the McAllen, Texas, metro area, with a population of about 130,000. 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