Police officers and criminal investigators use evidence management software to manage digital images, video surveillance, body camera footage, audio recordings, and videotaped interviews, as well as physical evidence and property. Standard solutions also integrate police reports, forensics and lab reports, CAD narratives, and more.
Evidence management solutions centralize evidence into one hub for easy file access and sharing between officers and investigators, maintaining a chain of custody and ensuring an accurate audit log is always available. Often, evidence management tools also have the capability to analyze existing digital evidence, which helps investigators uncover connections, generate new leads, and solve cases faster.
Evidence management solutions may also provide data visualization features to view multiple pieces of evidence in one timeline, such as security footage snippets, or use GIS to view case evidence on a map based on geolocation. These tools may integrate with police records management systems to retrieve stored records pertinent to cases, such as warrants, citations, and police reports, or to attach evidence to relevant records. Some products may also offer a mobile application to capture field evidence and store immediately into the database.
To qualify for inclusion in the Evidence Management category, a product must:
- Be a standalone solution separate from a police records management system
- Securely manage barcoded physical evidence and/or digital evidence, including body cam footage, field interviews, and security footage
- Allow for evidence files to be shared electronically between users and non-users
- Provide search functionality to segment evidence by criteria
- Enable users to visualize digital evidence on a timeline or map, if digital evidence management functionality exists
