For police, word from the wise is sufficient

Starting tomorrow, Brookline police will be among the first in the Northeast to use sophisticated voice recognition and response software that will allow officers in cruisers to get information quickly while keeping their eyes on the road.

Officers will be able to simply hold a button and read the license plate number of a suspicious vehicle into their laptops while driving. The computer then ''reads" back information on the car and driver.

''This is really about officer safety," said Brookline Police Technology Officer Scott Wilder.

Brookline police, mostly officers alone in cruisers, run about 16,000 plates a month, he added. ''The old way, [an officer] would stop at a red light and look up a plate, but by the time the responses came back, you would be driving again. Even when you're making a stop, you want to keep your eye on the vehicle, not look at a computer," he said.

One difficulty with the software is that it adapts to the sound of one particular user and sometimes will not recognize others.

To combat this problem, departments can set up different profiles for specific accents or genders, said Jeff Rubenstein, president and CEO of Advanced Public Safety, the company that makes the software.

Last week, Wilder was setting up the system so that when an officer gets into a Brookline cruiser tomorrow, he or she can select the gender-specific profile and start talking away.

The software is easy for even the technologically un-savvy to use, according to an officer who has tried it out.

''I'm not a real computer person," said department veteran Officer Ronnie McNeil. ''But this is great -- the voice activation is so much easier."

McNeil said an officer's laptop is a valuable tool but using it can be perilous.

''I have reading glasses," he said, ''so not only was I trying to look up information while in the car, but also putting on my glasses, looking through them at the computer, and up over them when I had to drive. There will be no more making a typo, then searching for the delete key. Now, I can just say 'clear.' "

About 15,000 officers across the country are currently using some version of the voice technology, said Rubenstein.

Some departments in other states are already using the next technological step: handheld ticketing modules that are connected with cruiser laptops.

When an officer looks up information, using either voice or keyboard commands, it will be automatically transferred to the module. The officer can simply specify a traffic violation and print out a ticket for the offense, Rubenstein said.

An officer could be ''in and out [of a traffic stop] in about 30 seconds," he said.

Wilder expects Brookline to begin using modules soon, maybe within a year, but is waiting for Massachusetts to finish creating state guidelines for such devices before moving ahead, he said.

The Boston Police Department is not currently using any voice recognition technology, according to Sergeant Thomas Sexton.

Massachusetts State Police use voice recognition only for reports, not for looking up license plates on patrol, said Trooper Tom Ryan.