262 ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

with both the public and private sectors of our economy. In fact, we
have taken the first step in this direction by providing an extensive
and essential salary increase for the State Police this year. The present
graduating class will be the first to enjoy the benefits of this measure,
for you of the graduating class will receive a starting salary that is
15% higher than that paid novice troopers in the past. I fully recog-
nize that this is but one among many critical improvements required
to attract and retain the qualified trooper. In the next year we shall
work toward reducing the fifty hour work week to the more accepted
forty hour standard.

Above all, the transition of techniques, technical capabilities and
capacities must keep pace with the revitalizing transition in public
attitudes and police professionalism. We are creatures of an electronic
age and the State's law enforcement agencies must capitalize on the
potential which modern technology can contribute to effective deter-
rence and enforcement. Computers have been proven as important
to effective public safety as they have to efficient business management.

Police officers, no matter how well trained, cannot be utilized to the
optimum nor produce to the maximum without rapid access to stored
information. As this class has been taught, time is a critical factor in
law enforcement. Many crimes can be solved if there is the rapid relay
and response made possible by computerization. Early in 1967, Mary-
land joined the National Crime Information Center in Washington,
D. C., which has enabled state law enforcement agencies to avail them-
selves of vital information stored and programmed by the N. C. I. C.
computers. Even this link is, in and of itself, insufficient to accom-
modate total State law enforcement demands. Consequently, the 1967
General Assembly has approved funds to finance the first phase of a
State Police computer system which will store all crime data collected
by the State Police and local law enforcement units as well as vital sta-
tistics on all inmates in the correctional system and those offenders on
probation and parole. This system, which should be operational with-
in two years, will enable any officer in the State to receive rapid re-
sponse to inquiries vital to effective law enforcement.

While the future of law enforcement has never been more promis-
ing, the technological opportunities to control and combat crime have
never been more diversified, nor the challenges more formidable. We
must realize that any significant reduction in the crime rate, or for

that mailer the appalling carnage on our roads and highways, does

not depend exclusively upon the performance of our law enforcement
agencies. It rests upon the revision, reform and revitalization of a mul-