Located on the west bank of the Hudson River in the state of New York, Clarkstown has a population of 85,000. It is the business center of Rockland County, and its 46 square miles include major routes from upstate New York to New York City.

Clarkstown has gained a reputation as one of the safest and best small cities to live in the United States. For that, some credit must go to Clarkstown Police Department (PD), with its staff of 156 officers and 70 civilian employees.

Catalyst for a culture change

Cloud-based email was an obvious alternative, so the Clarkstown PD introduced Gmail, the highly secure Google Workspace email solution. It was the start of a major cultural change across the whole department.

"Almost everything we do now is electronic, and most of our internal communications are through email," says Brian. "Everybody now uses Gmail in our organization. We no longer have to print copies of every memo for every employee, and we can share digital evidence faster and more securely than ever."

By way of example, Brian cites an instance where a citizen might receive a threatening voicemail from someone in the community. The person receiving the voicemail can email it as an MP3 file to the responding officer. The officer then forwards the message to the Digital Evidence Group—via a collaborative inbox set up in Google Groups. "The Digital Evidence Group inbox is monitored by five or six detectives," Brian says. "Once they get a report, picture, video, or sound file, one of them can take ownership of it and process it as needed."

Standardizing communications, simplifying collaboration

Gmail is the most important Google Workspace tool for the department at present, but several other products have also proved very useful, particularly for its community engagement work. For instance, the department does a lot of presentations and training, and historically, officers would have to put together their own presentations and often carry around the USB drive where they were stored.

That process has now been replaced and improved using Slides "We can give them a branded template that includes the PD logo, so all they have to do is add the text," Brian explains. "Then, all they need is an internet connection and they can login to their Google Workspace account."

Templates have also been developed in Docs for letters and memos, while Forms is being used to help improve vehicle maintenance. "When officers had a problem with their car, they used to call the desk sergeant and report issues—such as faulty air conditioning, a broken headlight, or a damaged lock. The sergeant would then add them to a handwritten list."

Now, that has been replaced by a simple form with drop-down menus. When officers report issues, the desk sergeant enters them on to the form, following a consistent format and terminology thanks to the menus. Once the work is approved by supervisors, the details are automatically added to a spreadsheet in Sheets. The same spreadsheet is available to the mechanics at the department’s garage, which greatly simplifies repair tracking and completion.

The administrative burden is lifted from the desk sergeant, and the police department has more information about its vehicles and when they should be back on the road. Brian plans to create more forms, as he begins to use the Google low code development tool App Maker.

Excellent teamwork

The next step planned is the transition of the PD intranet to Sites. The intranet is a key channel for information sharing within the department and

Now, the department keeps a list of shift briefings—non-urgent, but useful information passed from one officer to colleagues. For example, it might say someone has an overnight parking permit and can park on the street; other officers won’t then waste time enquiring. Brian’s plan is to replicate that with Sites, but streamline the process by using a reporting form that automatically populates a spreadsheet, and then work with Tempus Nova to generate automatic email notifications, too.

"For me, what we are doing with Google is mostly about collaboration," Brian concludes. "And collaboration is often what solves major crimes. So much of the technology available to support shared working in law enforcement is hard to use and that makes people hesitant to embrace it. But Google Workspace is intuitive and tools like App Maker are suitable for people like me without a programming background. With a little bit of time and effort, you can create efficiencies, improve processes, and collaborate more effectively."