Australia’s eight police agencies hold significant electronic information about incidents (e.g. crimes) and events (e.g. missing persons). Substantial effort is spent collecting, maintaining and developing this information asset every year across all agencies. These information systems operate largely in isolation and there is limited capability available to routinely support a national view of incidents or events. Similarly, there is limited technical capability to routinely support the identification of links between incidents, events and subsequent cross border investigations.
The Feasibility Study into National Case Management will explore the viability of progressing a common approach to sharing incident and event information nationally to support:
The study follows recommendations for improvements to support law enforcement in the management of crime nationally by a senior Commonwealth Government Committee and two senior Commonwealth Government inquiries.
Both the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission inquiry into serious and organised crime and the Clarke Inquiry into the Case of Dr Mohamed Haneef made specific recommendations to progress with the development of a national case management system.
The Clarke Inquiry concluded that the development of a system be progressed as a matter of urgency, whilst the Parliamentary Joint Committee made a specific recommendation that a feasibility study be undertaken.
The report of the Review of the Homeland and Border Security emphasised the importance of law enforcement agencies operating more closely and being better connected.
The feasibility study also responds to a request by the National Counter-Terrorism Committee (NCTC) for CrimTrac to identify the requirements of each police jurisdiction for a national counter-terrorism investigations management system.
A national case management capability would establish a common approach to sharing incident and event information nationally to support a national view of incidents, identification of links between incidents and cross border investigations.
Currently, most police activity is confined within jurisdictions and the key focus areas of investigations are associated with local community activities. Under this current system, crimes are being investigated as separate cases by each jurisdiction. If police had access to similar cases in other states and territories, they could use the information already gathered to help their own investigation.