Tech companies partner to help agencies cut through digital evidence backlogs

Reviewing digital evidence manually is “labor-intensive and diverts already deteriorated staffing levels away from frontline investigative duties,” Jillian Snider, adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said in an email to Route Fifty…

“In the past few years, there have been real advancements in AI with tools that can streamline some of these challenges,” Snider said. Plus, “neurodiverse workers bring a unique and highly valuable set of cognitive strengths to tasks like digital evidence management, offering law enforcement agencies advantages in efficiency and innovation,” she explained.  

For example, neurodiverse people “often possess heightened attention to detail, strong pattern recognition and an affinity for rule-based systems,” Snider said. “These are traits quite suited to managing large volumes of digital evidence, which require precision, consistency and persistence.” 

Those characteristics, she explained, can be particularly helpful for police departments to reduce error rates and expedite data-processing tasks as they work to chip away at digital evidence backlogs. 

Ultimately, Snider said leveraging AI and expanding inclusive workforce practices can produce “a direct and rewarding impact on investigative timelines and case clearances.”