How It Works How the Minnesota Crime Alert Network works The Department of Public Safety contracts with a telecommunications company that provides broadcast fax services. The company maintains thousands of phone lines and the computer equipment necessary to transmit faxes at speeds of 5,000 to 8,000 faxes per hour. Crime occurs and is reported to law enforcement agency. Law enforcement officer decides whether to issue a crime alert.
Officer decides who the crime or crime trend is most likely to affect.
Which types of business or community members are affected. The officer faxes the alert and cover instruction to a toll-free fax number for the Crime Alert Network. An operator at the company which provides our broadcast fax services does a query into our database to draw up the fax numbers and electronic mail addresses for the membership categories and geographic areas chosen by the officer. This takes only a few minutes. The operator sends the alert via broadcast fax and electronic mail.