Silent Dispatching?

[ladymoonlite]

Question: Anyone in a department currently (or formerly) using silent dispatching, via MDC or MDT, for low priority, service type calls? I'm researching the possibility of using this in our department and need input.

What do you like or dislike about it and why? :confused:

I'd like opinions from both sides of the mic!

Thanks in advance

[MrJim911]

Well first off, welcome to the board ladymoonlite! This is a great week for getting some new people on here.

About your question. My first thought is bad.
A couple things come to mind. Is your town busy enough to NEED do this? If I remember correctly the town only has a population of about 15,000 people. I can't see the generation of that many calls. Unless Will County dispatches for them?? Or is it Dupage? I can see you getting alot of crap out of Joliet though.... Anyway, what if the officers are out of their vehicles when you send them a call? Like it or not officers will not always tell us when they are out of the car. What if they are in the car but they don't hear the call come down to them? What if they send you a message and you don't know the message came up? How will all the other officers know where their other guys are at, at any given time? That right there may generate more radio traffic since they will ask you. I just don't see a reason to do this for any department. If your busy than the low priority calls are going to wait anyway because you won't have any available units.

On a personal (and paranoid note) :rolleyes: I don't like our job becoming less personalized. I think the officer/dispatcher relationship, albeit strained at times, does better when the voice is heard. Just my $.02.

[ladymoonlite]

Sorry, I should clarify this...While I LIVE in Crest Hill, I don't WORK for Crest Hill, but for Naperville. I didn't realize when I was filling out my profile that this would appear this way!

[MrJim911]

Just as a clarification for everyone else about my previous post, lady's city of Naperville has a population of about 130,000...Not 15,000 like I though for another town. My bad!

[ladymoonlite]

These are some of my thoughts on the subject, and some that I've heard from other sources -

ref: what if the officers are out of their vehicles when you send them a call? ANSWER: If the officer does not acknowledge the call via MDC within a predesignated time (ie, 2 minutes), the dispatcher would verbally let him know that a call is dispatched to him.

ref: How will all the other officers know where their other guys are at, at any given time? ANSWER: Our officers can sign on in such a way as to receive calls from other beats (those in their district, or in adjacent beats, or all calls). Further, is it necessary for officers to know this, if the call is just a service call, such as a vehicle lockout or parking complaint?

Believe me, I can play devil's advocate on either side of the issue. I know there are officer safety issues at stake here - but I also see that airtime spent on vehicle lockouts or chasing stray dogs or whatever can be an officer safety issue too! :argue:

[MrJim911]

I can see why you would be considering this. I know that your agency can be very busy on the police radio side of things.

I can't say that I agree, only that I see the other side of the coin. As far as the lockouts and stray dog comment. There is no routine call and any call can go down hill quickly. And you've been doing this longer than me, so I know you don't have to be told that. :p

[DispNowCopL8r]

MDC what's that? I wish we had them, your lucky!

[ladymoonlite]

Fortunately, Illinois is quite flat and allows for great radio transmission, and thus MDC, capabilities. I think many of us here have worked without MDCs as well, but then again, we don't all have 150 employees in Communications either! You've got quite the department there!

[kenoshacop]

I work on the road as a deputy, and I would have to say that I'm against silent dispatching. We've had MDC's for about 5 years and before that we had MDT's for about 2 years. We do give out warrant pickup's on the MDC. That is when another agency requests us to pick up joe blow on one of their warrants, or if someone from the public calls in to say joe blow is at home (or wherever else) and has a warrant. This is so joe blow doesn't hear it on his scanner.

They way we do that though is the dispatcher sends out an announcement on the MDC on what squads are going and where they are going to, so everyone else knows where they are. Doing it this way is strictly officer safety in my opinion. It is also a lot more work for the dispatcher and if the other officers aren't in their car, they won't know where the other guys are going until they get back in them.

Short of doing that on every call, I want to hear where the squads are going and what they are going for. Like Mr. Jim said, there's no such thing as a routine call.

Just my .02,

Kenoshacop

[MrJim911]

Yup, often our Sergeants may not be in their cars when their guys are sent to a hot call. And they will call up to dispatch from the PD and ask where they are going. Either because they weren't paying attention (grumble grumble) or they were in a meeting or on the phone. I don't expect them to go out to their cars and pull up the info on their MDC's everytime. Our officers can pull up the same info but they also may be out of the car and will want to know where everyone is at.

We also use the MDC's to sent out certain info that should not be broadcast over the radio.