Why do police use typewriters

According to a article in the Wall Street Journal , the machines are also still used by funeral homes, where death certificates are often filled out on typewriters, as well as prisons, where inmates often use them in lieu of computers for correspondence. The machines are still widely used in areas of the world such as India and Latin America, where reliable electricity is sometimes not a guarantee. Olivetti, one of the last remaining typewriter manufacturers, is based in Brazil.

The German government, for a time, resorted to using typewriters to write up sensitive documents to keep the NSA in the dark. Typewriters have a certain mystique among authors, especially ones who came of age in the pre-internet era. Hunter S. Thompson used them up until his suicide, the science fiction author Harlan Ellison prefers them over computers , and Cormac McCarthy used the same typewriter for 50 years , because of course he did.

Young Americans use typewriters too—though their reasons are mostly aesthetic. Much like vinyl, which has seen a resurgence in the past few years , typewriters offer a tactile sensation that an mp3 or computer word processor cannot. Just as many argue that taking a record out of its sleeve, carefully placing it on a turntable, and positioning a needle over a groove offers a completely different experience than simply pressing "play" on a song, one might argue that the physical sensation of pushing down a key and watching words take shape on a piece of paper in front of you jogs different parts of your brain than sitting and churning out words into a Google doc.

Using a typewriter can be a way of signaling your seriousness or soulfulness or your appreciation for nostalgia. Shortly after that, I briefly worked at Chicago Public Schools. Many of the things I took for granted at my old office were luxuries there: our budget was so tight that we had to reuse manila folders, multiple times. Nearly all the folders I used had been written on and whited-out three or four times.

I'd imagine city police departments wouldn't be much better off. It's possible this is also for evidence reasons - digital images can be photoshopped, or questioned as to being photoshopped, where it's a lot harder to alter a Polariod that you see taken, ejected, and developed on the spot. There's no point at which the film has left sight of the officer or other witnesses, between the picture being taken and the image developing.

It's also faster - you don't need to hook it up to a PC, take it to a photo lab, etc. Best answer: I can't speak to the accuracy of the show, but as someone who has worked in and around IT for years, I can say that it's never as simple as going to a yard sale and picking up an old IBM word processor.

As others have pointed out, when you introduce new technology, you have to consider stuff like: 1 Deployment timeline and costs 2 New staff to set up and manage the new systems 3 Training old staff to use the new systems 4 Compatibility with previous systems and planning for future systems 5 Maintenance requirements and cost 6 External infrastructure requirements just new power cabling is a lot to think about 7 Security implications etc.

Again, repeat after me, it's not ever as trivial as going to a yard sale and picking up a word processor , especially when you are dealing with a large organization and if I had a buck for every time someone made this kind of assumption in my presence regarding tech, I could retire, and I would also have a lot less desire to punch people in the face all the time.

Considering all of that, and considering that we are talking about a broke-ass police department and not a software company, it would be no surprise to me if they were still using typewriters in they're easy to maintain, backwards and forwards compatible with all brands of 8x11 paper and models of desks and filing cabinets, require almost no training other than typing classes, don't require network architects, network administrators, system administrators, or PC techs, and are pretty cheap.

It's a no-brainer. I worked at a small law office in New York City briefly in , and we still used a typewriter to fill out certain forms required by the court. The forms had to be typed and were not available in electronic form. There was no other way to do it.

I find this TV scenario totally plausible. Best answer: The very scene that you are talking about I watched it again a couple of days ago mentions the budgetary and logistical constraints in the dialogue: I am paraphrasing, but Kima says something like, "The millenium been and gone and we still using this shit," and Herc adds, "They were supposed to train us on the computers a year ago.

One of the overarching themes of the series -- maybe THE theme -- is institutional inertia and the difficulties that well-intentioned invidviduals face in changing something deeply ingrained. Still typing on a Smith-Corona in is symbolic of the way things get done becase, "this is the way we have done them for years. Minor but annoying mistake. Sometimes I really wish MeFi had an edit feature Somewhere in the bowels of my dept academic not police is a microfiche reader, back in the early s someone was convinced that these were the technology of the future and it would be a good idea to get a 25 year lease.

Up until sometime in the last five years if you requested a PhD thesis from the British Library a copy of all such theses is sent there from UK universities all? Baltimorean here. Sounds pretty realistic. There's plenty of city forms that still get filled out in triplicate with carbonless paper and typewriters.

There's probably not a strong justification for switching to computers until you can store and search the contents and systems like that cost money and time. If you're just filling out forms to go in a paper file, a typewriter does a perfectly adequate job.

Best answer: I work for a well-funded agency in the federal government. When I got here a few months ago they got me a brand new computer with a fast processor 2. We cannot upgrade anything on it, nor install Firefox or Chrome. I literally sit here and watch the windows redraw on the screen. We have no control over anything because it's "not approved by the national office". Instead of giving each office some control over what best fits their needs, they lock down everyone.

I think another part of the problem is that the IT people that work for the government are, well And a lot of them are older too, I think they moved into IT from other gov't positions, so it's not like we have a lot of fresh grads who are into the latest technologies.

The gov't throws millions of dollars at this stuff and we still end up with outdated crap. In other words, you would not believe what government agencies are and are not capable of! It is insane. Best answer: I think police reports in Philly are all still handwritten, too, and I'm pretty sure I've seen a typewriter at my local precinct for forms.

Forms are a funny thing in terms of computer technology -- computers are maybe less helpful than you'd think. And yeah, those old workhorse DOS databases are pretty typical in a lot of offices, actually, especially when there's a lot of bureaucracy involved. Using regular office software isn't terrifically practical. Forms in Word aren't stable in terms of formatting -- new versions or new default settings can make them all wonky.

There's an issue with the integrity of the recorded information, too -- once forms are completed, they shouldn't be able to be altered. Yes, yes, you make it read-only, there are a lot of ways to protect the information, but you need to get rank-and-file cops to follow the steps and comply and not make mistakes. And THEN you need some sort of electronic filing system that makes some sort of sense.

If I hand you a fistful of paper forms from the DMV for example , what are your options? Fast for one or two, gets annoying after a few and your hand cramps. This is good for doing several per day, like your sample cops. The third option is the slowest and finickiest, and requires way more hardware, software, training, support You just know that any old dusty bureaucracy like, say, an underfunded police department is chock full of crates of standardized forms.

I'm sure there are still police departments and other public type bureaucracies typing forms today, let alone in His company has a contract to repair 40 to 50 police IBM typewriters a year.

No officers could recall seeing anyone in the department hunting and pecking on an old IBM these days. A police spokesman said dozens of types of forms are still filled out with typewriters, including missing-person forms, towed-vehicle forms and search-warrant logs. In , the department rolled out a computer system called the Criminal History Records Information System to automate its reports. It was the beginning of the end of police reports pecked out on typewriters.