Vickie Pope, the crime analyst who helps oversee North Carolina's Web page, said the privacy of the Internet helps open the door to public involvement. They can look at it without talking to the police or calling the newspaper, and they feel more comfortable. And, Pope said, people like solving mysteries. It gets them involved. Pope said the site also opens the lines of communication between police officers in different jurisdictions.
Officers see information and contact other officers.
If any law enforcement agency can be credited for taking the Web site idea to a new level, it is the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department in Florida. Officers in other departments can go online in their office, at their desk, and access information they otherwise wouldn't have. According to Wolfort, the department's Web site has been a successful tool in spite of the fact that it has not directly resulted in any murder cases being solved during its two-year existence. Palm Beach County's Web site is coordinated with the local homeless coalition an important step in an area that has a warm winter climate and more than its share of transient residents. The homeless coalition, according to Wolfort, has an identification site and helps collect data such as dental records and photographs.