The Alaska State Troopers launched a new crime reporting system that allows Alaskans to submit information about certain crimes securely online. The new system is intended for certain non-emergency incidents and situations where the suspect is not known, and the crime was not witnessed. While the new online reporting system could be expanded, reports for fraud, harassing phone calls, shoplifting, theft, trespassing, and vandalism/criminal mischief are being accepted.
Rick Roberts, Captain with the Alaska State Troopers tells KSRM:
“Many police departments in Alaska and many across the country and in Canada have an online reporting option for members of the community to report crimes that occur, and the gist of this portal is that non-emergency, not-in-progress, calls for service can be reported to the troopers through this online portal. Anecdotally, we think up to about 30% of our call volume that requests to talk to troopers are, after the fact, incidents where it’s no suspects or no leads and people might just need a case number for their insurance company or something like that.”
Roberts says that this online reporting system saves both the agency and the citizen time and resources because, before, Alaskans were forced to call a non-emergency phone number or physically go to an Alaska State Trooper post to file a police report:
“For us to be able to receive calls for things that – the population’s growing, there’s some places in Alaska where our crime numbers are increasing, but the number of personnel to respond to them aren’t – and this is a way for us to still be able to interact with the community, be able to take calls for things that we might not need to send a trooper to directly or immediately, and still get the member of the community the interaction that they need.”
After a report is filed through the new system, each report is reviewed for accuracy, and any needed follow-up, by Alaska State Trooper staff members. Once the report was reviewed and accepted, the reporter will receive an email acknowledging receipt of the report, and a second email when the report has been reviewed and accepted. The second email will contain a copy of the incident report number that can be used for insurance purposes or their personal records.
The new system will be available within the Alaska State Troopers area of responsibility, and crimes occurring in an area patrolled by a local police department should still be reported directly to them.
Click here for more information.
