South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED)
|
Location: |
Columbia, south Carolina |
| Employees: | 830 |
| Population: | 5.5 million |
| PowerDMS Customer: | Since 2013 |
| Products used: |
Policy, Training, Standards, Ready |
See how AI-powered policy search helped SLED reduce search time, empower employees, and quickly find trusted answers from agency policies.
At the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), one question came up so often it became part of the daily workflow: "Where does our policy say that?" With hundreds of policies, procedures, and supporting documents to manage, finding the right answer often meant relying on the institutional knowledge of one person.
SLED wanted a better way to help employees quickly find trusted guidance while keeping agency policy as the authoritative source. AI-powered policy search allowed them to do exactly that. By using natural language processing instead of keyword matching, the solution helped employees ask questions in everyday language and quickly locate the exact policy guidance they needed. Here is how SLED implemented the technology, built trust through a phased rollout, and empowered staff to find answers on their own.
Fewer Questions and More Accessible Answers
Finding Policies Faster
Empowering Employees Instead of Creating More Work
From Searching to Finding
Building Trust Before Expanding Access
A Practical Approach to AI in Public Safety
Rolling Out AI One Step at a Time
More Time for the Work That Matters Most
Looking Ahead
Advice for Agencies Considering AI-Powered Policy Search
See AI-Powered Policy Search in Action
Frequently Asked Questions
Every public safety agency has one.
The person everyone calls when they cannot remember where something lives in policy.
If you manage policies, you've probably answered those questions more times than you can count. Before long, you become your agency's unofficial policy search engine, expected to know where every requirement lives across hundreds of policies, procedures, forms, and standard operating procedures.
For Nancy Lundy, Accreditation Manager for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), those conversations became part of everyday life.
She oversees approximately 200 active policies while coordinating annual reviews and supporting accreditation efforts. Even after consolidating dozens of policies, remembering where every requirement lives isn't realistic.
"It's impossible to know everything in every policy."
Employees naturally turned to Nancy whenever they needed help locating policy guidance. Whether the request came from the training unit, command staff, or another agency, answering often meant stopping what she was doing, searching multiple policies, confirming the language, and responding. It was a process she repeated almost every day.
She wasn't looking for a faster search. She was looking for a better way to help people find trusted answers on their own.
Before implementing AI-powered policy search, finding information often depended on knowing the exact words used in a policy. A search for "weapon discharge" might return no results or hundreds of unrelated documents because the same terminology appeared across policies, procedures, and forms. Success often depended on guessing the right keywords.
Nancy describes the difference in memorable terms:
PowerDMS Solution: Instead of relying on exact keyword matches, the system interprets natural language questions and returns the most relevant policy guidance. When Nancy searches for "what do we do after an officer uses force," the system understands the intent and returns the correct use-of-force policy, even if she does not use the exact terminology. Every answer links directly to the source policy, allowing employees to immediately verify the guidance.
"It's not just doing the summary, it's the fact that it pulls up my policy for my agency and I can click on it right there and it takes me straight to it."
For SLED, that means employees can find policy faster while still relying on the policy itself as the authoritative source.
One of the first people Nancy wanted to give access to AI-powered policy search was the agency's training coordinator, not another policy administrator. The training coordinator frequently contacted Nancy looking for specific policy language to support curriculum development and compliance training. This employee relied heavily on Nancy's knowledge to locate the right policies.
"She was forever having to call me or message me and say, 'What policy says this? I know it's there somewhere, but I can't find it.'"
After seeing how quickly AI-powered policy search returned answers, Nancy asked leadership to include the agency's training coordinator in the initial rollout. The feedback was immediate: "She loves it."
PowerDMS Solution: For Nancy, the feature was not replacing conversations with coworkers. It was eliminating unnecessary searching so employees could find trusted answers on their own.
"Not that I ever mind anybody asking me, but when you can put the tools in their hands to help them, it's just so much better."
The real value of AI-powered policy search is confidence. Every answer includes a concise summary and a direct link to the original policy so employees can quickly verify the guidance themselves.
|
Element |
Traditional Keyword Search |
AI-Powered Policy Search |
|
Search method |
Exact keyword matches only |
Natural language questions |
|
Results Quality |
Multiple unrelated documents |
Most relevant answer first |
|
User Action |
Manual review of each document |
Direct link to relevant policy |
|
Time per request |
1-1.5 hours |
Approximately 5 minutes |
|
Verification step |
Requires re-reading full policy |
Summarizes relevant section |
PowerDMS Solution: AI-powered policy search is limited to documents your agency authorizes. Every response links directly to the original source policy so employees can verify the guidance independently. Customer content is never used to train large language models (LLMs). The solution operates within a secure, CJIS-compliant environment, giving agencies a secure alternative to public AI tools and helping reduce shadow AI use.
That foundation of trust also shaped SLED's phased rollout, allowing leadership to evaluate the feature before expanding access across the agency.
Like many public safety organizations, SLED took a phased approach to AI-powered policy search rather than rolling it out to every employee at once.
Nancy began by rolling the feature out to a small group that included leadership, legal, and training personnel. That gave the agency an opportunity to evaluate how AI-powered policy search worked within SLED's own policy environment before expanding access to additional users.
The rollout focused on helping employees understand that AI-generated responses summarize the information, but the policy itself remains the authoritative source.
"That was their only concern at first... this is a summary, you still have to go to the policy."
PowerDMS Solution: Because every response links directly to the complete policy, employees can immediately verify the guidance, helping build confidence in the rollout.
That measured approach reflects how many public safety agencies adopt new technology by moving deliberately, collaborating across teams, and building trust before scaling adoption. This aligns with responsible AI in public safety principles that prioritize transparency and human control.
Public safety agencies are understandably cautious about introducing AI into operational workflows.
SLED is no exception.
Nancy explained that her agency already has policies governing the appropriate use of AI because of the sensitive nature of law enforcement information. Staff cannot enter case information or personally identifiable information into public AI tools.
That made the AI-powered policy search fundamentally different.
PowerDMS Solution: Rather than relying on public AI platforms, employees search only the agency documents they already have permission to access.
For Nancy, that removed much of the uncertainty she initially fels about using AI.
"We've heard so much about AI... it's kind of scary. And this is not."
She added:
"PowerDMS is working to make sure it stays closed... it's just within my system for me. So, I don't need to be afraid to use it."
That experience shaped the advice she now gives to other agencies considering AI-powered policy search.
Nancy recommends introducing AI-powered policy search in phases, beginning with accreditation managers, policy administrators, legal counsel, training personnel, and command staff. Starting with the people who know the policy library best allows them to build confidence with the technology before supporting adoption across the organization.
"I think I would absolutely do it in phases."
She also recommends that policy managers spend time using the feature before expanding access.
"That person really needs to play with it first and understand it so that they can explain it to everybody else."
That measured approach reflects how many public safety agencies adopt new technology by moving deliberately, collaborating across teams, and building trust before scaling adoption.
For Nancy, one of the biggest benefits of AI-powered policy search isn't simply finding answers faster. It's getting time back.
Before using AI-powered policy search, requests to locate policy language could take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half each week. Some questions required searching across multiple policies before she could confidently respond.
PowerDMS Solution: Today, she estimates the answers to policy requests take about five minutes.
"The fact that I can just type something in there and it takes all of three or four seconds to get an answer back, that's a huge time savings for me."
That time allows policy managers to focus on higher-value work, including accreditation, annual reviews, assessments, leadership support, and keeping policies current.
Searching for the right document shouldn't consume that time.
Although SLED is still expanding access to AI-powered policy search, Nancy already sees opportunities to extend AI capabilities beyond policies to accreditation standards. She wants to make it easier to connect standards and policies during assessments and compliance activities.
For now, the agency continues expanding access through its phased rollout while gathering feedback to guide future adoption.
Based on SLED's experience, Nancy encourages agencies to introduce AI-powered policy search in phases, starting with policy administrators, accreditation managers, legal counsel, training personnel, and command staff. Build confidence, gather feedback, and expand access from there.
Most importantly, don't let uncertainty about AI prevent you from exploring tools designed specifically for your agency's policy environment.
As Nancy puts it:
"Don't be afraid to use it in your work."
For SLED, AI-powered policy search didn't replace policies.
It made them easier to find.
If your agency relies on one or two people to answer policy questions, it may be time to give every employee a faster way to find trusted information.
See how the PowerDMS AI-powered policy search helps modernize public safety policy management by allowing employees to ask questions in everyday language, quickly locate the right policy, and navigate directly to the source document with confidence.
Request a Policy demo to see how AI-powered policy search helps public safety agencies reduce search time, quickly locate trusted policy guidance, and spend more time serving their communities.
AI-powered policy search allows employees to ask questions in everyday language instead of relying on exact keyword matches. The system returns a concise answer and links directly to the relevant policy so users can review the complete source document.
No, AI-powered policy search is not the authoritative source, but it will link you to the original source for quick confirmation of accuracy. AI-powered policy search helps employees locate the right policy more quickly while providing direct access to the source document.
Public safety agencies manage hundreds of policies, procedures, and supporting documents. AI-powered policy search reduces the time employees spend searching for information while helping them quickly find trusted answers within their agency's approved policy library.
SLED recommends introducing AI-powered policy search in phases. Start with policy administrators, accreditation managers, legal counsel, training personnel, and command staff. Their feedback can help build confidence and support a successful agency-wide rollout.
Public safety agencies need AI solutions that protect sensitive information while giving employees fast access to trusted guidance. Policy's AI-powered policy search operates within a secure, closed-loop environment and only searches the documents your agency authorizes. Customer content is not used to train large language models (LLMs), helping agencies maintain control of their information while supporting secure access to policies and procedures.
For agencies concerned about employees turning to public AI tools, AI-powered policy search provides a secure alternative for finding policy information without copying agency content into external applications. This helps reduce the risk of "shadow AI" use while supporting CJIS-compliant workflows and organizational AI governance.