A mobile arrest processing center is a vehicle that can mobilize to the scene of an arrest to carry out preliminary activities. The mobile center can carry out fingerprinting and the processing of evidence and documents on location and later transport a subject to a dedicated holding facility. Evidence collection occurs on scene; however, evidence processing occurs either in the Miami Beach Police Department’s Crime Scene lab or at the Miami-Dade County lab. A detainee can only be transported by a sworn law enforcement officer and the Department uses civilian crime scene technicians, so the vehicle cannot be multi-purposed.
Considerations
Every arrest requires time to properly document. When possible, the initial arrest affidavit can be completed on scene to avoid an officer having to leave their assigned area and travel to the station to complete the necessary paperwork. At other times, and due to security and safety concerns for the officer and the arrestee, as well as to limit the chain of evidentiary custody and protect evidence from cross-contamination, the arrested parties should be immediately removed from the area of initial detention.
Officers must also manage increasing security concerns outside of their vehicles to deter any potential attacks and possibly being overwhelmed by unruly crowds which could pose a threat to all parties on scene and any recovered evidence. As such, having a mobile arrest and evidentiary processing vehicle would limit the officer’s ability to move from the arrest location to a safer one to complete the arrest process. Therefore, the use of a mobile arrest processing center in a tourist and entertainment-driven city such as Miami Beach, while theoretically feasible, would be impractical and inefficient if implemented.
Additionally, an increased emphasis is placed on the proper management of custodial chain of evidence and prisoner property in field processing. The longer evidence is kept in the field, the more problematic it becomes to maintain the chain of custody and accountability. The chain of custody and removal of property and criminal paraphernalia at a crime scene is sensitive and specific in its handling and must be limited as required by law. As the Department is accredited through the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), it is bound by strict adherence to the standards established for the handling, receipt, and storage of evidentiary property. All evidentiary property must be stored within designated, secure areas with access limited to authorized personnel. Security measures must be established for high value and sensitive items, such as monies, drugs and firearms, and evidentiary property must be sealed and stored individually without any chance of cross contamination.
A mobile room or command van, consequently, requires an exceptionally secure site that will accommodate the contraband and personal prisoner property with dedicated Property and Evidence Division personnel manning the station. This personal property must at some point be brought back to the main station so it can either be secured for processing or, if not evidentiary, be transported with the prisoner as they make their way from the holding facility to the main jail. This requires the use of additional personnel and officers to secure and process on location which could also increase the overall processing time of any given arrest rather than decreasing it.
It is important to highlight that during high impact weekends when bulk arrests historically occur more frequently, the Department works with area partners to bus prisoners to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center (“TGK”). At all other times, MBPD uses customized mobile prisoner transport vehicles that enable an MBPD Detention Officer to transport a detainee directly to the Department’s temporary holding facility or to TGK safely. The prisoner van is deployed daily.