Police departments handle police report requests all the time. Some of these requests come from victims of crimes and accidents, but law firms and insurance companies, acting on behalf of their clients, also often submit police report requests. Handling these requests can represent a significant part of a police department’s workflow, so it’s important to implement an efficient, customizable, and trackable solution to make the process manageable. Here’s how to handle police report requests online, saving your police department time by automating the entire process. 

How to handle police report requests in 3 steps

Implementing an online form and database approach makes it easy to receive, manage, and produce police reports, and you can get the automated request process started in just three steps.

Make it easy for people to request information

Traditionally, people have requested access to police reports either in person or via mail, both of which are inefficient ways of starting the process. Plus, if someone requests a police report by mail, they need to provide specific information. If they don’t, the police department may have to reject the request or ask for additional information, which can slow down the process. 

An effective way of resolving these problems is by using online forms. Customizable online request forms ensure requesters provide all necessary information, and they’re easy to update in real time as police department requirements change. 

For example, Tom Simmons at personal injury law firm Mesirow & Associates in Washington, D.C., discovered that his local police department changed one of its requirements — now, if anyone other than the victim requests a report, the department won’t release it unless it receives a copy of a retainer agreement or a notarized authorization letter to do so. He reports that had he not known about the change, he probably would have had to take two trips to the police department to make his request. The law firm added those documents as part of their intake package, but if your online form makes a new requirement like that clear, you can save everyone a lot of hassle.

Manage requests in a centralized database

When you rely on a paper-based system, it’s all too easy to misplace or lose requests. Even if you have a dedicated storage system, it can still take a long time to read the person’s handwriting, file each request, source the necessary paperwork, and respond in a timely manner.

An online database that integrates with your online form is a much better solution. Form submissions streamline data collection — the information is automatically populated within the database, and anyone in your organization can use it to track requests.

Using an online database makes it easier to share knowledge across your organization, writes Mike Kappel, founder and CEO at Patriot Software. “This can improve teamwork, encourage innovation, and prevent knowledge hoarding,” he says.

Managing everything online also makes it easier to respond to requests. Instead of copying the paper police report, finding the person’s address, and sending the report by regular mail, you can quickly email the report as an attachment using the information stored from your online database.

Automate workflows where possible

Depending on your police department, you may get a lot of report requests each week from a variety of sources. Your time is valuable, so it only makes sense to minimize the hours you spend collecting, managing, and acting on report requests. 

But that’s easy to do when your entire report request workflow is online. Using a workflow automation system, you can make sure report requests get sent automatically to the right person and that notifications are fired off remotely when a request is updated. You can reduce the steps in a process from requiring multiple touches to being complete at the click of a button.

How to handle police report requests with Jotform

Jotform offers a complete solution for handling police request forms. Use Jotform’s police report request form template and integrate it into your website to make it easy for people to send requests. Combine it with a Jotform table to automatically save, sort, and track request forms in a cloud-based database. Then use Jotform Workflows to automate your workflow and streamline your entire process even further.

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