MIRIAM (Major Incident Room Index and Action Management) consists of three services: typing services comprising several word processors linked to the central computer; the STATUS service based on an existing computer package which is a free text information retrieval program; and the Action and Service Index which permits a computerized index to be created for nominal, address, telephone, vehicle, and category indexes. The main computer hardware has been installed at the Essex Police Headquarters in Chelmsford, but it can communicate with three other locations: a typing pool, the incident room, and a remote station. The system will operate in a similar way to the manual incident room by having a receiver read all incoming documentation and raise any urgent Actions. The system has been operating since July 1983, but is a test bed rather than a prototype system. A national survey of all major inquiries for which major incident rooms are established is being conducted to help in planning a nationwide system. In the interim, the Home Office is making arrangements to ensure that the police have access to computer facilities in major crime inquiries. The hub of these arrangments is an indexing system based on a proprietary computer package called Autoindex which can be run on a microcomputer. Data created on the microcomputer will be transferred to a large commercial bureau for storage. Charts and two references are supplied.