Mobile Patrol originally designed for crime victims

It’s been said that people like to read about good things their family did and bad things that everybody else did.

With the widespread availability of the smartphone, some of the bad part is now available at one’s fingertips, as well as the good.

That’s thanks to an application called Mobile Patrol.

Apparently many people here have it and look at it often, whether they acknowledge doing so or not.

Some of the news stories that have been reported recently have come about mostly because of something someone saw on Mobile Patrol.

For most people the main function of Mobile Patrol seems to be telling them who has been put in jail recently. It does more, though.

One important point to remember is that the local sheriff’s department and police department have nothing at all to do with Mobile Patrol, so any complaints, or compliments, about it would be wasted on them. The application is integrated with law enforcement agencies in all 50 states.

Mainly, Mobile Patrol is designed to provide an inmate’s name, physical information, photo and charge or charges as well as release data.

That hasn’t been the case lately, though.

Photos have only sporadically appeared and Union County Chief Deputy and Jail Administrator Johnny Bell said that is a technical problem, apparently, rather than a conscious decision to include or omit any of those arrested. It should be fixed by the application developer.

The application also no longer lists criminal charges, so a person could be included for public intoxication, murder, or anything in between without a viewer’s knowing which. Bell said he has been informed charges are not currently included because there is no consistency or uniformity from state to state. A nationwide federal standard is being worked on to correct that, however

In addition to giving inmate basic information, Mobile Patrol allows information to be shared, allows crime tips to be reported, can automatically notify a crime victim if and when an offender’s status changes, and can integrate with social media.

Mobile Patrol is often associated with something called VINE and its original purpose was to help solve crimes and aid crime victims.

Two men started the company in Kentucky in 1994 and VINE stands for Victim Information and Notification Everyday, the trademarked name.

The parent company is now known as Appriss, Inc. and Mobile Patrol falls under the Appriss Safety division. There is a sort of companion program called VINELink and both are available free from the Apple App Store.

At the beginning of 2016, Appriss divided into three distinct business entities: Safety, Health, and Retail, to bring industry-focus to the company’s diverse family of data-driven solutions.

Appriss Safety is the developer of the Appriss Insights Platform, which the company says is the nation’s most comprehensive source of person-based incarceration, justice, and risk intelligence data.

They say VINE remains the nation’s leading automated victim notification solution, delivering more than 43 million notifications annually.

It can be a valuable tool for crime victims as well as for law enforcement officers themselves.