Doña Ana County Commission approved the purchase of a new records management system for the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Department by a vote of 4-0.
Doña Ana County will be splitting the cost of the around $1.9 million dollar system with the city of Las Cruces. Doña Ana County Undersheriff Ken Roberts says the system is essential to public safety.
“The records management system is the software which contains all of the information that comes into the sheriff’s department,” Roberts says. “To any of our local police departments, and it’s basically the storage container that keeps all of that information. And allows entities, including the public, that need certain reports to be able to go in, draw that information out and put it into report form.”
The current system is around 13 years old, and has been discontinued. Las Cruces Police Chief Jaime Montoya says the system no longer meets their needs.
“We can’t enter the information we want,” Montoya said. “Into our Pryor’s, it’s called Pryor’s it’s our current RMS system. Right now as we get new officers, we can’t even enter them into the system right now. It won’t allow us because it is failing. We have to use badge numbers, which can be a good thing in the long run, but certain functions that an RMS should do we can’t do, and that hinders what we are trying to do countywide, which is enhance public safety.”
Undersheriff Ken Roberts says the new system can also create crime reports and statistics based on regional areas and types of criminal activity, which can help prevent crime.
“We can flag those whenever we see like type crimes coming in,” Roberts said. “Where we can send that to the community policing initiative, where the units are purposely looking at that particular area based off the geographics, the time that these burglaries are occurring. All that data gives us a map to try to be proactive rather than reactive. Where we’re waiting to push crime out versus waiting to go take a report that a crime has occurred.”
Doña Ana County Commissioner Ben Rawson says the new system is a long time coming.
“Wonderful, Finally,” Rawson said. “We’ve got that record management system coming in, as you heard it’s going to take 12-14 months to get it fully implemented, but at least we’re headed in the right direction.”
The commission also approved the purchase of 29 new vehicles for the sheriff’s department.
