You know what’s wild? In 2025, Maine’s law enforcement agencies still can’t talk to each other because their computer systems don’t match. That’s right — our cops are stumbling through investigations like it’s 1995, all due to bureaucratic siloing and outdated IT.
A recent report from WGME lays it out: about half of Maine’s police departments use one version of “CAD” (Computer-Aided Dispatch / records systems), and the other half use a different one. The result? Information lockouts. Chief Fisk of Biddeford points out she can run tattoos, arrest histories, incident logs within York County — but in Cumberland County, the system doesn’t “see” their data. WGME
So if a suspect flees across county lines, you don’t just follow the leads — you phone every town and ask, “Hey, do you see this person in your system?” That’s your best-case scenario. WGME
The “Cost” Argument They Bring Up
The state police admit it: to unify systems would cost millions — plus each town would have to migrate decades of records. WGME That’s always the escape clause for doing nothing. “It’s expensive” becomes code for “not our priority.”
Meanwhile, towns already paid for their CAD systems — some costing hundreds of thousands up to over a million. WGME So now we have multiple towns, multiple systems, and the state paying twice — once for what we already have, and again to fix it.
Who Pays? (Hint: You)
- Taxpayers: These system mismatches increase investigation time, slow down justice, and force duplication — inefficiencies we all pay for.
- Law officers & victims: When evidence trails are delayed or fragmented, crimes go cold. Lives may be put at risk while agencies juggle paper and phone calls instead of data.
- Smaller towns: They often lack IT capacity or funding to upgrade or migrate, so they stay stuck — essentially punished for being small.
The Delay Is a Feature, Not a Bug
What we see here isn’t just mismanagement — it’s systemic inertia. When systems are decentralized, decisions are harder, accountability is diffused, and any real modernization can be delayed indefinitely.
If tech unification were easy, it would’ve happened already. The fact that it hasn’t is a signal: nobody powerful enough wants to rile up local departments, force costly upgrades, or take the blame for data migrations gone wrong.
On the Wall of Shame
This one belongs right up there on the Wall of Shame for government failures.
In 2025, when criminals drive from one county to another, our law enforcement answers: “Hold up — let me call someone, see if someone over there has the report.”
That’s not public safety, that’s public farce. Dare we ask how many cases were stalled — or worse, lost — because a system didn’t share data?
Until Maine refuses to honor fiefdoms and invests in real interoperability, we’re just paying twice for half a job.