When a county grows by a third, the report queue does too

What I found when we looked closer

St. Mary's County, founded in 1637, is one of the oldest counties in the country. More than half of its 764 square miles is water, making it the second-largest county in Maryland by total area. It is home to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, a large defense-contractor community, and St. Mary's College of Maryland, and it grew from about 84,000 residents in 2000 to 113,777 in 2020.

Deputies cover a long, shoreline-heavy peninsula, and the report queue has grown with the county.

In their words

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:

1. 1Deputy
2. 2Sergeant
3. 3Investigations
4. 4Circuit court in Leonardtown

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:

• Same-shift report completion
• Reports per deputy per shift
• Supervisor returns per report

Figures on this page come from the department's own published materials. We only publish Code Four results after the department reviews them.