An important crime-fighting partnership that involves University of Central Florida faculty and students and law enforcement officers has new resources and a new home in Central Florida.

Building on the success of a unique crime fighting data sharing system, the nonprofit Center for Law Enforcement Technology Training and Research (LETTR) has moved into the Central Florida Research Park.

In addition to giving students the opportunity to work hands-on with law enforcement professionals, LETTR allows for expansion of the Florida Integrated Network for Data Exchange and Retrieval (FINDER™) program to sheriff’s offices and police departments across the nation.

In its new location, LETTR houses law-enforcement personnel and engineering and computer science students who develop the software tools needed by law enforcement. The team also researches new technology to keep crime fighters ahead of the criminals.

Ernie Scott, a UCF alumnus and retired criminal investigations division chief with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, is the current director of LETTR. He, along with Orange County Sheriff’s Detective Jim McClure, who manages FINDER, are spreading the word about the FINDER system to law enforcement agencies nationwide.

FINDER allows police to search databases throughout the state by entering queries involving property, motor vehicles, pawn activity and persons ranging from suspects to felons or their known associates. Only individual law enforcement agencies have access to the system.

“FINDER is one of the first information sharing systems that has appealed to law enforcement agencies at all levels,” said McClure, who credits its success to the hands-on development approach. “The UCF approach was from the ground up, with criminal justice and computer science experts working one-on-one with the law enforcement users to develop software that would meet the immediate and intricate needs of a working officer.”

Cpl. Duwana Pelton, a homicide detective with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, estimates that three-quarters of her workload, which largely involves researching unsolved cases from as long ago as the 1960s, was cut in half by FINDER.

For example, if Pelton comes across a case that involves stolen property, she can automatically search for it in seconds using FINDER’s pawn shop records -- something that would have taken her hours, if not days, to complete before. When Pelton finds a match, she has immediate access to the seller’s name, driver license information, and thumbprint, which, by state law, pawn shops are required to obtain. Pelton says that, while she has used other commercial software programs in the past, they were prohibitively expensive to the agency and did not have the wealth of data offered by FINDER.

Law enforcement officials are not the only ones impressed with the FINDER system. The LETTR board of directors is compromised of members who praise FINDER’s success and are eager to spread the word throughout the country. They include Seminole County Sheriff Donald Eslinger; Vice Admiral Al Harms, UCF vice president for strategic planning and initiatives; Joe Giampapa, director of technology transfer at UCF; and Emery Gainey, director of law enforcement relations, victim services and criminal justice programs for Florida’s Attorney General.

Harms said that LETTR, by providing the FINDER system, is making information sharing for law enforcement an accessible and affordable reality. Giampapa adds that LETTR is “getting the best technology available into the hands of law enforcement.”

Orange and Seminole counties, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the National Institute of Justice have already contributed almost $1 million in development funds for the center.

ABOUT FINDER: The FINDER system database began in 2002 as an idea. Five regional sheriff’s offices partnered with the University of Central Florida to create a system that would allow law enforcement agencies to electronically share their critical information with one another. Since its inception, FINDER has grown to include more than 110 law enforcement agencies sharing data, making it one of the largest law-enforcement information-sharing systems in the country. To learn more about LETTR and FINDER, visit http://www.lettr.org/.

-- UCF --

 

Return to Main Page