Screen-Pops and Interactive Voice Response:
Wygant SmartAnswer in Public Safety

Pennsylvania State Police
Wygant 's SmartAnswer helps police keep firearms out of the hands of criminals...

Background
In 1995 the Pennsylvania State Legislature required a background check on any person applying to purchase a firearm (Consolidated Statute Title 18 sec. 6105 et. seq.). Under the law, background checks were at first performed by sheriffs, but in 1998 the state police took over the responsibility.

Problem
Under the old system the checks queried a total of seven different databases and could take from five to six days. Customers at gun shows could not possibly wait that long for approval when the gun show itself lasted only two days. Without infringing on the constitutional right to bear arms, Pennsylvania needed a way to comply with the law and enhance public safety. To do this it had to drastically increase the speed of these background checks and, perhaps most importantly, decrease their cost.

Solution
In June of 1998, the Pennsylvania State Police installed Wygant 's SmartAnswer with a Unisys interface to federal state and local data bases. SmartAnswer uses recorded messages to request the gun dealer's registration number and the gun applicant's drivers license number and social security number. Using this information and software similar to that used for credit verification, SmartAnswer begins the background check even as the dealers are waiting in the answering queue for a police registration agent to become available. SmartAnswer informs queued callers how long they will wait before a clerk becomes available. With the SmartAnswer's screen-pop feature, agents are given the results of the data base searches before being connected to the dealer. As a result, once the call is fielded applications can be accepted or rejected in a matter of seconds after reaching an agent.

Benefits
With the installation of SmartAnswer, background checks on gun applicants can be done in a fraction of the time they took before and with greater accuracy. The average time for a background check using the system is 2-3 minutes. This efficiency saves the state an estimated $500,000 in personnel costs annually and as a rewarding unexpected benefit, the system has led to the apprehension of over 100 individuals with outstanding arrest warrants.

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