So what’s important about the Swedish Police and a Radio System? Well, several things were note worthy, I thought. First of all even though Sweden is a much smaller country than the US, many would assert it’s a smarter country. Well, I don’t drive a Volvo, so I’m not going to get into that fire starter, but this effort definitely ranks on the very smart side of things.

I know, I know we pride ourselves in the US on keeping everything separate. We need local police forces, country forces, in some cases several different types of state police forces (all times 50) and then a whole raft of national agencies. What do each of them have in common? You might not have guessed yet, but even nearly 5 years after 9/11, THEY CAN”T Talk to Each Other!

The idea of a national emergency radio system is an idea that has long been a great one. We don’t have to give up any local control just to put people on a modern radio system. The same officers that report to the same chief today can still report to her, everything can be just as private as we want it .. but when the chips are down an office or a dispatcher can press a key and talk to his or her counterpart in another jurisdiction when a crime is in progress or lives or property are in danger.

Sure, Dave, I hear you saying, nice technogeek idea, but how could we ever pay for such a monster? Well, what if I told you we are already paying for it today .. in fact, as a nation, paying way more than we need to?

If you look at what individual departments are paying for vehicle radios, handhelds, base stations, repeater sites and everything else the Motorola is able to convince them to buy … and then laid out a shared network that uses components of the system on a shared basis, you’d find we could save a huge amount on equipment alone. Then, look into the fact that every radio system has a whole staff of dispatchers associated with it .. these could be shared as well. The potential for cost savings is enormous.

As a bonus over and above the cost savings, we;d have better policing and safer officers … that’s worth something even if only in smaller workmen’s comp bills.

A couple other savings are hidden in this idea, but they are huge ones. First . radio spectrum. It’s hard for a police department to get adequate radio frequencies assigned. Frequencies already assigned are often congested. Well a national, harmonized and “trunked” system like I am advocating cuts down tremendously on the need for individual channels. Also, if you read through my reference article you’ll see my GPS connection. The national system should include GPS tracking in every unit, in car or handheld. This cuts down tremendously on the channel traffic, as well as insures great service to the citizen and reduced officer workload.

I know this post comes under the heading of dreams and schemes but really, the time has come to take a closer look if we’re interested at all in improving our country’s efficiency and security.