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Building Blocks

The justice system looks at analyzing information exchanges and adopting standards in its effort to build integrated information systems.

There is no magic bullet for information system integration in the justice enterprise ? it is a lengthy, ongoing process. Chasing the goal of integrated justice information systems will continue well beyond the tenure of most of today's political, justice and law enforcement leadership.

The question, however, has become how to measure progress toward that goal.

It is often difficult to assess the degree to which justice officials have complete, accurate and timely information to support decision-making throughout the integration process, said Kelly Harris, deputy executive director of SEARCH, the National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics

An easier and less costly metric is simply to note steps jurisdictions completed in the integration process, according to a recent SEARCH brief co-authored by Harris -- Measuring Progress: A Summary of Key Milestones in Support of Justice Integration.

SEARCH's recommendations not only offer a means to measure progress, but in some ways help provide a roadmap to integration.


Useful Roadmap
Through work over the years, Harris said SEARCH has found key best practices and critical success factors.

"These nine milestones are the key steps -- the best practices. Each one has multiple activities and initiatives underneath them. These are very high, 100,000-foot level things that justice folks have to do as they move through the successful integration of their information systems," she said.

Justice integration milestones stem from the practical observation that challenges are not that different from one jurisdiction to another.

"Often when you have interoperability or information-sharing projects that involve a multitude of stakeholders, you have different views of what success is and how you measure it," said Lt. Col. Jeff Harmon, deputy chief of the Maine State Police. "SEARCH's milestones will be very useful as we go forward with different projects."

Harmon said following the milestones could help remove turf issues from the planning process. "You are looking at things more from a systems standpoint," he said. "Of course, every organization has its own priorities, but those priorities may not give you the best immediate value or best results for the whole system."

According to the SEARCH brief, each milestone represents a building block that enhances work done in the preceding milestone. They provide a series of steps to build a solid operational, technical and policy foundation for a successful integrated justice initiative.

"The justice enterprise isn't like a company with one CEO," said Harris. "You really have multiple CEOs -- chiefs of police, judges and many different elected officials -- involved in these enterprise systems."

As with all government institutions, the justice enterprise leadership changes over time. "We've seen many efforts go way down the road toward completion," she added. "Then key leaders leave after their term is over, and the initiative can literally fall apart."

Maintaining an enduring structure, commitment and cohesiveness throughout the life cycle of justice projects is often a challenge. Integration is a process, not merely a project, she said, and it is characterized by many years of planning, implementing, supporting, managing, enhancing and evaluating various systems that make up the justice enterprise.

Integration and information sharing require cooperation over the long haul from agencies involved, said Harris, which makes measuring progress more important so everyone recognizes that progress is being made.

"When technology came on the scene, we saw the pervasive idea that with computerization and electronic interchanges, things would automatically be better. Agencies would need less staff and save money," she said. "Then there were all these major failures -- not just in justice, but also in the private and public sectors generally. People now understand that simply throwing money at technology is not the end all. That alone does not make you successful."

SEARCH is finalizing a more detailed document to fully plot a roadmap for integrated justice information systems. The milestones were published in brief form at the request of the National Governors Association so governors across the country could better evaluate where their initiatives stand in terms of integration.


Importance of Standardization
The development of milestones, Harris said, goes hand in hand with the other big push in the justice arena: analyzing information exchanges and adopting or developing standards.

"You have to look at your business processes, the rules that govern information sharing within the justice enterprise," she said. "When do you send this information? Why do you send it? Who does it go to? What are the rules for when that person or agency gets that information? These things have to be documented so you end up with intelligent systems pushing data at critical decision points."

Mapping and standardizing information exchange is vital, said Pam Scanlon, executive director of the Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS), a joint powers agency of 50 local, state and federal agencies in the San Diego region.

"For years we have standardized on bulletproof vests, guns and other crime-fighting tools," Scanlon said. "But we have never standardized on the sharing of information, and it is absolutely critical. Currently local information simply is not being shared the way it needs to be."

To facilitate information sharing, ARJIS uses a justice information exchange modeling tool developed by SEARCH and funded by the U.S. Department of Justice. ARJIS used the tool to exchange information with the courts on traffic citations, Scanlon said.

"It had worked very well and was well received by both sides," she said. "We now have adopted that as our standard to use for all our interfaces."

More than 40 jurisdictions have benefited from the tool, Harris said, because the business analysis then allows technologists to build and implement a system that will work.

"We have found about 660 universal information exchanges within the justice system," Harris said. "When a new jurisdiction is ready to build their integrated system, they can use the tool as a reference -- keeping those exchanges that apply to their jurisdiction and dump ones that don't. This is something a jurisdiction would spend years and years documenting on their own."

The value of the modeling tool goes beyond simply saving time planning these information exchanges, and provides some efficiency in integration or even just information sharing, said Harmon.

The Maine Police are using the modeling tool to understand the information exchanges and build a technological platform that also uses the XML Global Justice Data model to facilitate exchanges, he said.

"Of course, you can't build it all at once," he said. "The model gives you a base line to start from. You use it to prioritize and begin working your way down through those information exchanges. You end up with a universal architecture for all stakeholders to work against."

One advantage to this approach is that everyone in the justice enterprise may not have the same priorities. Electronic court filing of traffic tickets may be a priority for law enforcement, but courts might have different priorities and may not get around to building their part of this particular exchange for some time.

With agreed-upon standards, one part of the justice enterprise can build a system that will marry easily with others built later. Harmon also noted that many data types -- whether people, vehicles or documents -- repeat themselves in different exchanges, and having a standard to describe these data types will help justice entities overcome some technical challenges they faced in the past.


Barriers to Integration
Of course, in this era of tightened budgets, funding is almost universally seen as the biggest barrier to building an integrated justice information system -- when finally available, money still goes to separate agencies and continues to encourage silos. It's not being geared toward interoperability and sharing, and when jurisdictions do get money, they haven't planned how to use it.

"They simply haven't gone through and drawn up requirements [or] an actual plan of how they are going to proceed," ARJIS' Scanlon said. "Things are taking a lot longer to get developed, and it seems that things never come in on schedule or on budget."

Both the information exchange model and data standards may help alleviate this continuing problem, said Scanlon. These can be written into RFPs, vendors can use them to develop solutions that fully integrate today and well into the future, and they help overcome another constant challenge.

They can help law enforcement and agency executives understand the justification and benefits of integration, she said, because as with most other technological initiatives, continued support from the top level of the justice enterprise is vital to success in justice information integration.