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Oxnard Police Dictation System

For over 20 years, officers at the Oxnard Police Department have enjoyed access to a completely automated dictation system. While most agencies require that officers either handwrite or type reports, Oxnard officers dictate nearly all of their reports to a computerized system that is accessible from any pushbutton telephone.

Many of us take dictation for granted because we have had it for so long. For those of us who have never worked without dictation, we wondered what that was like, so we asked someone who knows -- Officer Daniel Whitmer. Here is what Dan had to say about the Oxnard P.D. dictation system:

I have been a Police Officer over six years now. I came to the Oxnard Police Department in February 2001 from another agency in this county. One of the nicest programs at the Oxnard Police Department is the dictation system. With this system, officers talk into any available telephone and do their reports. This allows officers to do reports in a very fast manner and enables them to stay available for service in the city.

I live in Oxnard and like the fact that officers are not all at the police station doing reports for long periods at a time. In fact, most of our beats have storefronts in them. When you see an officer at a storefront, he/she is probably making some phone calls trying to get more information on something or dictating a report. Most reports can be done within five to fifteen minutes.