Violation Code

The Violation or Offense code field is used to indicate the violation or crime the document references for various documents in the database.   Violation codes are presented in a forced choice list that is created based upon the violation codes entered via the system configuration process. These are user definable codes and are often the actual statute reference.

Violation codes are classified by "Code Type" as either a Criminal (C) or Vehicle (V) type code or (B) for Both. Violation Codes classified as Criminal will appear on the Offense code list in the Booking and Incident module while codes classified as Vehicle will appear in the Accident and Citation modules. Codes Classified as Both will appear on all offense or violation code lists. The primary purpose for this code classification is to restrict or limit the number of codes that will appear in the drop-down list by filtering out the type of codes that are not likely to be applicable for a specific module.   

NOTE: Since some jurisdictions use Citations as a criminal charging document, there is also an RMS configuration option that can be set to specifically show and include offense codes classified as "C" criminal to appear in the Citation module.  

When defining violation codes, it is possible to define certain 'default' associated values such as an Associated # ( Often used as for other State Specific codes that define the offense ), FBI UCR Code or an Offense Category code (used to group certain codes together for reporting purposes)  

* IMPORTANT *

Remember the database represents a historical reference to documents so the Violation/Offense Code list is not necessarily just a list of the violation codes that are valid today, but the violation codes that are valid today and have been valid historically.  As such once an Offense/Violation code has been entered and referenced by a database document, it (Generally Speaking) should not be deleted or otherwise modified because to do so, would be to potentially change the reference to that code and how it was used in the past.  Database documents only store the offense/violation "code" (not the full offense description text) as part of the database record.  As such, all database records will always rely on the code table to do a "lookup" and provide the historically accurate definition or description for a code.  If a code is no longer currently valid, the code should merely be marked as "Inactive".  Codes that are inactive will not appear when entering a NEW document/database record, but will appear when editing an existing record or performing a database search/query, so that users have the ability to work with and search for historical, as well as current, code values in the database.

Also See: How to Build Code Tables