“It’s grant funded, so the price is right,” Wibert said. “It’s something that’s way overdue. All of our jurisdictions work together, we can add to all the information we share already.”

Sgt. Scott Phillips of the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office said although the program will not directly save the police department any money directly, it will aid police officers when transferring inmates between one of three jails in Ingham County.

“Anytime we transfer any inmates, people are already booked,” Phillips said. “Once we don’t have to worry about redoing paper work again, our services will be sped up with medical services and court services.”
Another benefit of the system is that it could save officers’ time, Wibert said.

“It would save a lot of extra work,” Wibert said. “When you re-book a prisoner, you have to go through all the questions. It’s a 10 or 15-minute process. We get a vanload (of prisoners) several days a week.”

Wibert said instead of going through a questionnaire, transferring information between jails will be as simple as clicking and dragging the file on a computer screen.

The system also would streamline the information at the police stations with road officers, providing officers on the road with photos, names, dates of birth, past charges and contact information of people in the database, Phillips said.

“With this booking system, you’ll be able to see anybody in the country (who) is under the system,” Phillips said. “Since they’re booked in one place, we can track them in the county no matter where they go.”

Phillips said the county still is in the process of purchasing a system and does not have an official contract with any company yet. However, Phillips said the departments are working with Visionair, a company that provides the ELPD and Ingham County Sheriff’s Office with a records management system. The Ingham County Sheriff’s Office has been using Visionair since 2006.

“It’ll combine with the management system interface,” Phillips said. “We won’t have any issues with interface classification systems that we currently have. We don’t have to go to outside vendors to change the booking system or to upgrade.”

At Tuesday’s council meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Diane Goddeeris said the system is similar to that found in hospitals booking patients, and will be helpful in organizing information for the ELPD.

“This is a good thing for us,” Goddeeris said.