NEW CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE PLAN IN WORKS

Missouri law enforcement is taking a big leap into the computer age with the first steps being taken by the Southeast Missouri Drug Task Force.

The Missouri Highway Patrol will test an Internet-based criminal-intelligence network by the end of April, with the hope of improving abilities of police statewide to solve crimes.

The network will give law officers something they haven't had before, said Sgt. Kevin Glaser, head of the Southeast Missouri Drug Task Force.

"It will provide us with a source of active intelligence on people involved in crime throughout the state," Glaser said. "Up until now, if someone were involved in criminal activity in one part of the state, it's not going to show anything in another."

Other law-enforcement agencies have provided criminal suspect information to their own officers but not regularly to other police, said Capt. James Keathley, who is in charge of the Highway Patrol's drug and crime control division. This results in criminals, suspected but not charged with a crime, traveling across the state, then repeating their crimes elsewhere.

"An intelligence network has existed within the Highway Patrol for years, but it's just internal," said Keathley. With Missouri's acquisition of the criminal-intelligence network from the Connecticut state police, Mississippi is left as the only state lacking one.

"Hopefully in less than a year it will be available to any police agency in the state," he said.

The network will be a clearinghouse for police suspicions about people who have not yet done enough to be charged with a crime, Keathley said.

The network will be especially helpful with drug crimes, Glaser said.

"Drug dealers are very mobile," he said.

Along with the Drug Task Force, the Missouri Gaming Division will test the intelligence network through state troopers assigned to riverboat casinos, Keathley said.

MULES is available at every sheriff's department and many police stations in the state, but the information is different, he said. The MULES computer network offers text-only information on missing persons, warrants for arrests and ex parte orders.

MULES carries out its job well, but it isn't suitable for intelligence, police say. MULES would have to be completely rebuilt for use in intelligence work, said Van Godsey, an officer with the Highway Patrol's drug and crime control division.

"So many people have access to it," he said.

The coming intelligence network will follow federal guidelines, Godsey said. This involves having a reasonable suspicion, based on facts, that someone is involved in a crime before typing in information.

"You can't just put the name of someone you don't like in there," Godsey said.

Records for federal compliance must be kept showing who receives information from an intelligence network, when and for what purpose. Federal guidelines also say religious, social or political views must not be maintained as part of a criminal-intelligence system.

The need for shared criminal intelligence increased once the state became part of the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, Keathley said.

As part of a five-state HITDA group, Missouri shares criminal information with Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and South Dakota. Because law enforcement agencies aren't required to report annual crime statistics, Missouri's numbers are inevitably inaccurate, he said.

"The state statute has no teeth," Keathley said. "There's no incentive to report and no penalty if you don't."

A bill in the Missouri General Assembly filed by Rep. Rich Chrismer could change that, and the introduction of the intelligence network should help facilitate better communication, Keathley said.

Lt. David James of the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department thinks the new network will change how much police and others need to know.

"So much of criminal investigation is based on who you know," said James, who is in charge of the Southeast Missouri Major Case Squad. "I've been in law enforcement for so long I know a lot of people in different places, but not everywhere."

Because the intelligence network is Internet based, it will allow photos and other images to be sent securely between agencies, he said.

"If I would want to see a copy of a footprint of a burglary suspect in Perry County now, I'd drive up there," James said. "This network would change that."

The technical requirements a police agency would need to be part of the intelligence network are minimal, Keathley said. It operates through Lotus Notes.

It is designed to function as a dial-in network. As the volume of agencies calling in increases, Keathley said this could create a problem.

The network comes at no cost to the state, he said, because Connecticut is simply sharing a program it received through federal money.

Missouri would have spent millions of dollars to develop its own criminal-intelligence program, Keathley said.

"The only things we have to do is get the hardware and change the name from Connecticut to Missouri," he said.