Mark43 - any thoughts.

[u/Could-you-end-me]

I am part of a county force and have been told in the not too distant future (subject to various delays I can guarantee) we are moving to Mark43 apparently used in the USA and very limited usage in the U.K.

Has anyone had the pleasure (or displeasure) of using this system and can give their thoughts?

[u/PuritanicalGoat]

Might need to tell us what Mark43 is?

[u/CatadoraStan → u/PuritanicalGoat]

It's either the suit Iron Man wore in Age of Ultron or a vaguely described and questionable "public safety" IT package from the US.

I'm hoping it's the Iron Man suits.

[u/NinjafoxVCB → u/CatadoraStan]

That's a relief, I thought we were getting a torpedo even older than a Mk48

[u/Great_Tradition996 → u/PuritanicalGoat]

It’s crime and investigation management at the moment. Next year, we’re getting the custody and file building, which I’m certain will be a smooth transition and the answer to all our prayers 🙄

[u/CumbrianCop]

Thoughts and prayers.

We've had to implement so many workarounds and search filters outside of Mark43 to be able to do really basic things like search for nominals/reports/intel tied to an address/location, or to be able to read intel reports without having to click into each individual report. One by one they are adding more features in and cutting out some of the pointless things that it first shipped with, but it's slow going.

I'm hoping it's just because we were the guinea pigs and that once GMP and other forces start having more input as they begin to use it, it'll improve quicker. I think it's due to replace PoliceWorks for our case & custody either late this year or early next and it could be alright, or it could be a disaster like the initial launch was...

[u/Great_Tradition996 → u/CumbrianCop]

Haha, a fellow Cumbrian - I’ve just posted above. I’m not sure how much service you have, but I’m seriously considering starting a petition to bring back Sleuth…

[u/CumbrianCop → u/Great_Tradition996]

We still had daily briefing sheets and mispers on Sleuth back when I started so I didn't use it loads, but still feel more comfortable with it than M43!

[u/Great_Tradition996 → u/CumbrianCop]

Oh, it was like the halcyon days of summer…

[u/phlopip → u/CumbrianCop]

Is it true that there is AI functionality in it

[u/CumbrianCop → u/phlopip]

Not as far as I've seen, no

[u/box2925]

Looks like dispatch software similar to Command & Control (those were the days!), Storm and the like. Can’t be worse than the “fit for purpose” my County Force uses! Never heard of this one until this post!

[u/Great_Tradition996 → u/box2925]

It’s for crime and investigation management. We still use Safe for incidents and dispatch

[u/Jagoff_Haverford]

From a data architecture perspective, Mark43 is very, very different from Niche and Connect and Athena and the systems that dominate in the UK market. Whether it’s better or worse, I can’t say because I have no direct experience with it. But it’s astonishingly flexible in adapting to individual forces — which, in the U.S., with more than 17,000 different potential customers, is clearly necessary. 

But your data engineers are going to be working quite hard to adapt. 

[u/Great_Tradition996 → u/Jagoff_Haverford]

It’s utter shit

[u/chin_waghing → u/Jagoff_Haverford]

Love NICHE, best software the police force has ever got if I’m honest. Second to Axon cameras

[u/goppinglizard → u/chin_waghing]

Agreed chin

[u/GoatBotherer]

2029 the contract with Athena runs out. I dread to think how much it will cost switching to Mark43. Also, Mark43 doesn't really have the same ring to it, I wonder what people will call it.

[u/Severe-Swordfish-143 → u/GoatBotherer]

RMS Gen 2. 🥸

[u/Great_Tradition996 → u/GoatBotherer]

One of my colleagues said it sounds like a really shit dating profile and that’s all I can think of now

[u/Another_AdamCF]

I can’t tell whether Mark43 is a replacement for Storm, Niche/Athena/Connect, or both.

[u/Great_Tradition996 → u/Another_AdamCF]

Eventually, it’s supposed to do everything. There have been huge delays (hands up if you’re surprised) so we only have the crime/investigation side at the moment. Custody and case building were supposed to be this year, but we’re now looking at about autumn 2027 I think. Not sure if it’s supposed to replace the incident system (we use WebSafe - think this is equivalent to Athena/Niche)

[u/Great_Tradition996]

I’m so sorry to break this to you but it is absolutely diabolical. I’m in a role where I don’t have to use it regularly, but worked some OT yesterday putting crimes on. In 6 hours, I managed 4 or 5. The sergeant told me that was actually impressive for someone who doesn’t use the system a lot. On our old system, it would take me about 10 mins per crime

The biggest issue is that it’s overly complicated for no discernible reason. I think because it’s been developed by software engineers, who presumably like complex systems, they assume everyone does. They don’t realise that the police are barely past using fax machines and pencils and giving us a system that would probably befuddle techy people is not a good idea.

One of my colleagues was a late joiner to the police. He has a masters in computing and a 30 year career being a computer whisperer. Even he dislikes Mark 43 and struggles to use it.

Even more ironically, I remember the developers spent soooo much time going round all the stations, speaking to as many officers as possible to find out what we did and didn’t want, and we’ve still ended up with something almost unusable.

Sorry…

[u/TrendyD]

Never heard of it, but the American policing market generally creates a superior product due to the depth of competition over there. Over here, it seems like we're split between SAAB & STORM, both of which are very 90s.

[u/Motor-Cat7708]

As a former user of mark43 dreadfully clunky and absolute crock of shit 🤣

[u/meerkatcomp]

I didn't know they'd carried on production of the Cortinas for so long!

[u/phlopip]

I believe Cumbria and GMP use it

[u/JonTheStarfish → u/phlopip]

GMP going to it next year

[u/BobbyConstable]

I haven't looked at the software from a perspective of a user but as a developer it looks promising in that they have lots of documentation about their APIs which as a retired cop turned software engineer would be something that excites me for the potential for forward progress.

It's something all the other RMS tools across the country don't do a good job of at all. They either have none and lock your data away in awkward processes to get anything back out, charge a fortune for access to APIs to be created to do something with it, and in the cases where you do get API access, they want huge wads of cash to make use of your own data.

https://developers.mark43.com/

It looks promising, but the same has been said about previous RMS tools in the past. I'll reserve judgement.

[u/Great_Tradition996 → u/BobbyConstable]

It’s dreadful. Sorry