I faced the same basic concept a number of years ago, and we had to make it work for barely computer literate police.

Basically, we used a single piece of software's single feature as our reference, for describing it to others and for how to handle the experience.

iTunes Smart Playlists. (https://www.evernote.com/shard/s136/sh/7f5f39a1-6c85-4853-aa...)

I have yet to see a better interface (than iTunes) for building what are essentially custom queries.