Software

Review: Dragon Law Enforcement Saves Time for Busy Law Enforcement

The speech recognition platform, specialized for first responders, produces efficient documentation.

Carlos Soto is an award-winning reviewer and journalist with 20 years of experience covering technology and business within various sectors and industries.

Document processing and call routing are the lifeblood of any police station. Despite the efficiencies of American law enforcement, reams of paperwork can sometimes clog the gears of justice — or at least slow it down.

Because documentation is a vital component in all legal matters, every law enforcement agency strives to increase speed and accuracy when creating those documents and reducing bottlenecks. The less time officers spend on paperwork, the more time they will have to be out in the field protecting the public. And eliminating mistakes in paperwork can help ensure arrests are properly prosecuted.

Dragon Law Enforcement from Nuance draws on decades of speech recognition technology experience, putting the highly accurate Dragon speech engine at the center of this new law enforcement platform. Research shows that using speech recognition services from Dragon enables users to create accurate documentation three times faster than when typing.

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Fast Voice Input Assists Officers with Document Management

The Dragon Law Enforcement speech recognition platform simply brings the benefits of speech recognition to police officers and others working in legal or law enforcement fields. It’s even able to automate common tasks required of law enforcement officers. For example, instead of police officers having to type out their full names, badge numbers and other contact information, they can program Dragon to do that automatically whenever they say, “add officer info,” or whatever phrase they want to trigger that response.

I tested the law enforcement speech recognition software by filling out arrest reports from a standard template, then compared it with performing the same tasks using manual data entry. On average, I saved 10 to 15 minutes per 30-row form, and even more once I programmed in repeated key elements. These savings can result in records getting into management systems or police databases much faster.

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Voice Software Doesn't Require Technical Expertise to Use

My tests also showed that the Nuance Dragon software was highly accurate. In my testing, achieving 99 percent accuracy was common. When there was a recognition mistake, it was easily corrected, still using just my voice.

Another great reason that law enforcement will like the Dragon software is its simplicity. Officers don’t have to be IT experts. Most people will only need to spend a few minutes learning how everything works. In fact, the time it takes to learn how to use Dragon Law Enforcement will likely be made up when processing just one or two records, making it the perfect partner in the never-ending fight against crime.

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SPECIFICATIONS

Type: Software
Model: Law enforcement
General Category: Office applications
Subcategory: Voice recognition
Installation: Locally installed
Purchasing: License

5 Key Advantages to Robust Speech Recognition

Omnichannel customer engagement is the future in citizen services. Local services, such as law enforcement and also non-emergency services like 311, must leverage an efficient retail-like approach when connecting with local communities. This equates to providing multiple ways of creating communication opportunities and engagement between law enforcement agencies and the citizens they serve.

More than simply letting citizens choose when and how to interact, these services must always be available and offer self‑service capabilities that keep bottlenecks at a minimum.

The hardest part of creating an omnichannel approach toward local citizen services is doing so in an intuitive and simple manner. One way to accomplish this is by offering modern capabilities such as speech recognition.

This was demonstrated in New York City, where Dragon Law Enforcement was tasked with boosting citizen services by automating 311 capabilities. By implementing speech recognition and intelligent call routing, Dragon Law Enforcement provided a better experience for citizens without tying up skilled officers to work in call centers.

In New York and other places, the key values found from using Dragon included the following.

The security and availability of an overburdened 311 service was optimized, along with other contact centers.
Costs were cut by bolstering live agent schedules, which also increases departmental efficiency
Speech recognition software, such as Nuance’s Dragon speech recognition, has been shown to increase call center efficiency by 20 percent. It also offers the ability to increase agent availability by 37 percent, reducing the wait time for citizens.
Shorter wait times for citizen calls is a contributing factor to why Dragon speech recognition also reduces call abandonment by 50 percent.
Citizens surveyed directly after a call reported a much higher satisfaction with the engagement, compared with before the Dragon platform was implemented.

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