NYPD Spends $1 Million On Typewriters 11
EdIII writes "Despite having most, if not all, of it's arrest forms computerized, the NYPD has spent nearly $1M dollars on new typewriters for its police officers to fill out property and evidence vouchers with carbon copies. Regardless of complaints from police officers about inefficiency, lack of common sense, and slow processing, typewriters are not going to be phased out anytime soon according to officials. As one cop put it, 'We have to sneak around the rest of the precinct in search of a ribbon to steal.' According to one study by Dr. Edith Linn, outdated equipment is part of the reason for officers being averse to making arrests for less-serious crimes. However, it's not all bad news, for the typewriter companies at least."
Governments (Score:2)
You can always trust a government bureaucrat to spend the people's money in amazingly innovative ways.
typewriter companies? (Score:1)
what typewriter companies?...
Might have a point (Score:4, Insightful)
This form of redundancy (carbon copy + ribbon copy) eliminates the possibility of post-editing by electronic form. The word document version of word processing. This makes a lot of sense for an organization that is dragged into court thousands of times a year. No virus infection to alter reports, or force reinstall of OS, no hdd crashes, no backup fails, just a simple straightforward typewriter.
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You'd have all of those issues with computers, don't forget.
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What will the department do during a power failure?
absolutely nothing
Did you think these were manual typewriters? No, they're electric typewriters of course.
I don't think you can buy a new manual typewriter anymore, nobody makes them?
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It's an Olivetti. However, on this page it says: "Due to the popularity of this item, we are unexpectedly sold out."
They should have just called me. (Score:1)
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