The benefits to the state demonstrated from the e-citation project are dramatic,and can be divided into several categories:
- Officer Benefits
- Improved safety due to faster issuance of the ticket and less exposure to a potentially dangerous defendant;
- Less effort and a resulting increase in job satisfaction;
- Integrated activity logbook to reduce the amount of redundant paperwork required;
- Availability of electronic information about the defendant that will assist in enforcement.
- Justice Benefits
- All citations are totally legible, and immediately in an electronic database;
- All citations are totally complete, with computer edits assuring that no essential fields are omitted;
- Computer consistency checks in the field assure accuracy to the greatest extent possible;
- Increased revenue due to speed in issuing ticket and ease in issuing multiple citations to same defendant;
- Increased efficiency of court clerks;
- No backlog of tickets to enter;
- The electronic citations can immediately be transmitted to the court of jurisdiction, eliminating the need to do data entry by court personnel.
- Highway Safety Benefits
- More thorough enforcement, due to the ease of issuing multiple citations;
- Improved officer efficiency means that officers are able to spend a greater percentage of their shift time in patrol;
- Meaningful warning tickets collected into database;
- Immediate electronic availability of previous citations, thus allowing defendants receiving serial citations to be detected.
- Research Benefits
- Ability to concentrate enforcement efforts in an optimal fashion;
- Ability to easily determine demographics (defendant background information, types of citations issued, etc.)
Accuracy, efficiency and safety all will improve radically as a result of using eCitation. Use of this program is a force multiplier both for the officers and the court clerks. Ultimately, the safety of our roadways stands to dramatically improve through expansion of the eCitation project.