Beyond the Beat: How the Real Time Crime Center is shaping the future of policing

Yahoo

07-05-2025

Editor's Note: This is part four of four in a series. The other parts of the these series can be found at the bottom of this article.
COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — Columbus Police leadership says the Real Time Crime Center is changing the way crimes are investigated and solved.
'I think it's a big part of policing in the future,' says Lt. Andy Farmer of the Columbus Police Department.
Farmer oversees the department's Real Time Crime Center in the basement of the Public Safety Center. Farmer says the center is helping solve cases quicker, and with that comes a shift in the landscape of policing.
'We have seen over the last couple of years how it's grown to help solve cases quicker,' Farmer says. 'And I think that's only going to improve.'
Analysts and officers work a bank of monitors with cameras placed across the city. They see in real time what the officers on the ground cannot see or what they did not see as they answered the emergency call.
While the crime center is a useful tool in solving cases, an internal gripe has arose: 'Why isn't this a 24/7 service like 911?'
The center currently operates Monday thru Friday late into the evening, but not overnight. On weekends, officers are on call. But that is likely to change.
Mathis will be retiring next year, and tells WRBL he is committed to having the center fully operational around the clock before he leaves.
'We are at that point right now we need it 24-7,' Mathis says. 'We don't have the personnel – the people who are trained to do it just yet. But we will be there.'
The answer to the personnel question comes in the form of civilian analysts. People from outside the world of law enforcement whose sole job it is to sift through camera footage and provide assistance to officers.
Sgt. Adam Moyer, who is a veteran of the department, says the advantage to hiring civilians is simple: you cut down on training time.
'Sometimes it's easier to get a civilian employee versus a sworn employee,' Moyer says. 'It takes a sworn employee weeks, months, years to get through training. And to utilize the civilians you can put them to work pretty quickly.'
There is some debate within the department about how the Real Time Crime Center will impact on-the-street staffing.
The crime center has taken the policing in the fountain city and pulled it into the age of technology. With this advancement come change, and with the hiring of civilian analysts onto the team, the make-up of the police department has changed also.
'It is always going to be a tag-team effort. But it is already replacing boots on the ground. 12 years ago they had 488 positions allotted for the police department. I am not down to where I am telling them at 400 police officers – boots on the ground – and the Real Time Crime Center and let me expand that and I don't need 400 officers.'
While the future of policing is changing, one thing was consistent when speaking to leadership at the Columbus Police Department: these civilian analysts want to help their communities.
Beyond the Beat continues in these articles:
Part 1: Columbus Real Time Crime Center at forefront of dramatic change in policing
Part 2: How civilians are changing the way police work is done
Part 3: Real Time Crime Center offers Columbus Police information that leads to arrests
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