IN CLARK COUNTY, Washington, it became known as the “RegJIN effect.”
Sheriff’s deputies just north of the Columbia River had been told for years to expect a game-changing crime reporting system that would allow them to seamlessly share information with pretty much every law enforcement agency in the region.
And that system—the Regional Justice Information Network, referred to as RegJIN (pronounced “region”)—did change the game. Just not in the right ways.
When the system went live in April 2015, formerly simple police reports became lengthy undertakings, snatching deputies off patrol for an hour or more, according to Clark County Undersheriff Mike Cooke. Hence the “RegJIN effect.”
“It was so inefficient that we actually saw a dip in the number of bookings in the jail,” says Cooke. In some instances, deputies “wouldn’t make an arrest to avoid being tied up for an hour or two with paperwork,” he says.