KE's award-winning project pays off
Kowloon East Regional Intelligence Unit's (KE RIU) Service Quality Award-winning project is yielding results and is attracting the attention and enquiries of other Formations.
KE RIU launched the project in October 2002, and has since issued "flyers" for 85 crime cases, each carrying suspects' photos or images captured by CCTV and giving relevant information on each case.
"As a result of these 'flyers', arrests have been made in 18 cases so far, and we're very pleased with this. We'll try to improve the project and will use the $12,000 prize money from the Service Quality Award to buy more advanced equipment," said KE RIU's Chief Inspector, Mr Eric Cheng Tak-ming.
Mr Cheng disclosed that some other Formations had heard about the project and enquired about it. "We've given all relevant information to the interested Formations so that they would develop a similar system for their own use to prevent and fight crime," he added.
KE RIU submitted its project for the 2003-04 Service Quality Award competition, and shared the championship with Staff Relations Group. KE RIU's winning entry shows that service quality has a wide range of practical applications, and that when properly approached it can bring about meaningful improvements in police work.
The project is the outcome of a study on the improved use of technology to detect crimes by KE (Crime) Senior Superintendent Mr Kevin Laurie, and Mr Cheng.
"We have reviewed our existing resources and work procedures, and studied how to make better use of them in our work. The project relies on making a better use of existing technology," said Mr Cheng.
Explaining the project, Mr Cheng said the essential equipment is a Time Lapse VCR and a TV monitor, which are used to view CCTV tapes of a crime and select the best images. The selected images are then stored in floppy disks or CD-ROM of a video printer, before being printed in the form of "flyers" with the aid of computer software.
"The beauty of the project is that we can develop, distribute and store CCTV images of suspects and get them to frontline officers very soon after a crime has occurred," he added.
Mr Cheng went on to say that the images were distributed via PEN, the KE Crime Briefs Database on POINT, and "Intelligence Corners", which have been set up in all KE police stations. In addition, pocketsize "flyers" are produced for beat officers, so that they can be carried easily on outdoor duties.
Mr Cheng pointed out that his project performs two important functions - it allows for better tasking of uniform officers on patrol, and helps investigators to detect cases.
"We have been pleasantly surprised by the support that has been shown for the project by patrolling uniform branch officers, and some of our best results would not have been possible without their enthusiasm and alertness."
Comparisons of images from different crimes have confirmed the same culprits being responsible for different cases. This has also led to the consolidation of 43 cases, reducing considerably the duplication of enquiries by case investigators.
CIP Cheng Tak-ming (standing) always discuss ways to further improve the project with his staff