What I found when we looked closer
Shelby County is the sixth-most-populous county in Alabama and part of the Birmingham metropolitan area. Its population was 223,024 at the 2020 census, and the 2025 estimate is 238,552, about 15,000 more residents in five years across 810 square miles. The county seat is Columbiana, and its largest city is Alabaster.
Growth like that means more calls, more traffic, and more cases that move from patrol into follow-up, often without a matching increase in the time deputies have for paperwork.
Following one report through the building
The first thing we do with a new department is trace where a report goes after the officer hits submit. Here, it passes through 4 hands:
- 1Deputy
- 2Sergeant
- 3Investigations
- 4Court in Columbiana
Every one of those readers needs the same facts from the first draft. That is what shaped what we built.
What we built for them
What we're watching
These are the signals that will tell us whether it's working here:
- Reports per deputy per shift
- Same-shift report completion
- Investigator time to assemble a case
Figures on this page come from the department's own published materials. We only publish Code Four results after the department reviews them.
