Like a massive puzzle, criminal justice agencies across the country are putting together the elements of information sharing systems in the hopes of improving public safety locally, regionally and nationwide.

Much of the need for these systems can be seen in individual criminal cases that have emerged across the country -- from a father in Colorado who purchased a gun, then shot and killed his three children despite a restraining order that the gun seller could not see to the case of Mohammed Atta - suspected ringleader of the 9/11 terrorist attacks - who had been stopped several times by law enforcement officials, who never knew he was on a federal terrorist watch list.

"Most people think justice information is already integrated but it's not. The public believes this, but law enforcement might not know if a person has an assault history or aliases. A lot of this is not known," said Thomas MacLellan, Senior Policy Analyst for the National Governor's Association's Center for Best Practices. The NGA has been working with individual states to promote the integration of justice information and to address policy challenges those states face as they build these networks.

As these networks come to fruition, justice agencies including the courts, probation, parole, corrections and local law enforcement will share information about offenders in custody and under supervision, their aliases, their photos, previous offenses, and affiliations they may have with security threat groups.

Much of the push for the integration of criminal justice information has come from the federal government - particularly since the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Recently, the Department of Justice released the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan, which provides an outline to law enforcement and public safety agencies for embarking on this effort.

The plan - under way since 2002 -- was developed through the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative by its Global Intelligence Working Group, which involves local, state and tribal law enforcement representatives. The working group was created to identify inhibitors to sharing intelligence and identify better ways to share critical information among law enforcement and criminal justice agencies.

This plan, combined with other efforts by groups such as NGA, assists criminal justice agencies in beginning and sustaining the information sharing process.

Plan Spells Out Recommendations

The Global Intelligence Working Group's recommendations range from policy considerations such as determining who will manage and supervise the information sharing efforts to the use of XML language in creating information sharing systems. These recommendations are designed for all types of law enforcement agencies from the smallest to the largest and from police to corrections.

The plan, which is considered a working document, currently spells out 28 recommendations as essential elements of making the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan work.

Some of these pertain specifically to local and state agencies such as the recommendation that law enforcement agencies, regardless of size, adopt the minimum standards for intelligence-led policing and their utilization or management of an intelligence function as contained in the plan.

These standards focus on the intelligence process, dissemination of intelligence products and accountability measures such as implementing a policy and procedures manual, ensuring standards are developed concerning background investigations of users to ensure security and promoting a policy of openness when communicating with the public regarding the criminal intelligence process.

Other recommendations in the plan are directed more toward national efforts such as the creation of a Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council that will advice Congress, the U.S. Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security on the best use of criminal intelligence. Additional recommendations in this vein include the need for continued funding of criminal intelligence sharing efforts, the development of minimum standards by the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts and the involvement of the federal Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS) and FBI's Law Enforcement Online system to serve as the backbone for implementing nationwide criminal intelligence sharing capability

While the plan sets out the overall vision of information sharing, in a hands-on capacity, organizations such as the NGA are working with states to make justice information sharing happen.

NGA: Helping States Along

"The reason why we [NGA] threw our hats in the ring on this is the governors play a critical role in this, they have the political capital to look statewide. It has to start at the statewide level where you get courts and corrections, probation and parole and the local law enforcement playing on the same field and sharing the same information," said MacLellan.

As part of this effort to assist and guide state governors, NGA has held Justice Information Sharing Regional Workshops to focus on policy issues, milestones and performance measures relating to integrating justice information. In addition, through the DOJ the Center for Best Practices has provided each state a $25,000 grant to support statewide justice information sharing initiatives.

According to MacLellan, the challenges that states face in implementing information sharing do not revolve around the technology, but rather around how the information is shared and whom it belongs to.

"Technology is the easy part. [The issues are related to] How is the information shared? Is there a backbone established? Where is it controlled in the system and who controls it? If it's court data, does the court still own the data?" said MacLellan. "It's sharing. We've made a point to emphasize it's information sharing and the information is available to everyone," he said.

He added that the states need to see themselves as the convener of the information, which comes from multiple agencies.

"You have all these disparate parts, probation agencies, local units of government, courts.  If you look at it like an enterprise, the governor has the ability to look across all things," MacLellan said.

In this role, the state should ensure that it:
*Provides an opportunity for local agencies, such as local police, to participate in the design of the statewide information sharing effort.
*Promotes and articulates standards and performance measures.
*Ties local agencies to funding.
*Provides training to local agencies to keep them abreast of activities statewide and the compatible technologies available.

"Most justice information is local information. It comes from local cops on the street, the local courts, it is the state's role to take that and put it in a useable form so someone from one county can look at information on a guy who was picked up the night before," said MacLellan.

One of the most invaluable aspects of the regional workshops is that states can learn from each other.

"States get to see what other states are doing. Once you have a decent process in place, it's easier for other states to beg, borrow or steal. It's a shorter learning curve. That's what this project has been built on. There's a lot states can learn," MacLellan said.

Knowing Where You Are

One example of best practices promoted by the NGA is the proper management of information sharing systems as a key component of success. The NGA recommends that this management structure include an executive committee that involves the state's Chief Information Officer, a technical committee and a management committee, whose job is to consider the sustainability of the system and how data is disseminated.

Many states whose systems are well underway have adopted this structure.

Beyond the structure of the system, the NGA's workshops also outline ways to measure how well a system is functioning and if it is meeting other standards that have been set forth nationally.

In the NGA's regional workshops, the participants can see how to evaluate the project, learn ways to fund it, expectations for using XML language, and the standards and performance metrics that are recommended.

"There are milestones to help a state assess where they are in their IT integration," MacLellan said. "We are looking at where states are using these [milestones] as the benchmark. It a way for states to look at [progress]," said MacLellan.

SEARCH, the National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics, has published the following milestones based on SEARCH's observations of a variety of integrated justice and other systems development initiatives across the country.

1. Initiate the Process and Institutionalize a Governance Structure

2. Continue Planning

3. Develop and Use Performance Measures

4. Analyze Information Exchange

5. Adopt or Develop Standards

6. Create a Sound Integration Architecture

7. Develop the Infrastructure

8. Improve Agency and Organization Applications

9. Establish Interfaces

According to Kelly Harris and Lawrence Webster of SEARCH, as the justice enterprise works through each key milestone in support of justice integration, it ensures that the initiative has the proper backing of key stakeholders; follows a well-charted course with a singular, agreed-upon vision; enhances business processes through analysis of agency and organizational exchanges; and conforms to industry accepted standards for information sharing.

Each milestone is a building block that enhances work done in the preceding milestone, and develops a solid operational, technical and policy foundation for a successful integrated justice initiative. Of course, once integration in the justice enterprise commences, the process continues, as does the need for proper planning, enhancement, staffing and funding.

One state that has launched what many consider to be a model of justice information sharing is Kansas.

KCJIS and KASPER

The Kansas Criminal Justice Information System has been in operation since the late 1990s and connects criminal justice agencies throughout the state to offender data.

With a photo and thumbnail description, criminal justice agencies can find out information on a suspect such as his past criminal history and parole status by entering certain pieces of data that match up to a profile. In addition, the system interfaces with federal databases

"It allows what we call a master name search. Let's take officers on the street. Officers are stopping people in the street and they can enter a vehicle registration or driver's license and it allows them to put descriptive information that they have. It spawns queries to the pertinent databases," said Chuck Sexson, Assistant Director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

"If the person is on parole and it hits in that file, at least they know they are dealing with a parolee and the officer can question them about what they are doing," he said.

According to Sexson, the state was able to use its grant from the NGA to purchase computer equipment it needed to move the system along and to separate the information databases that were to be a part of KCJIS.

Now, several years later, KCJIS has progressed to the point where it is implementing new features to the system such as subscription notification.

This feature would allow a notification to be sent to KCJIS subscribers when a parolee is released from the penitentiary and scheduled to release to a particular community.

"By the Department of Corrections putting that information out, it will send a notification to law enforcement in that area. It provides them with that information," Sexson said.

The follow-on feature to that, Sexson said, is to notify the DOC when one of their parolees has been picked up for a violation or new offense. This will occur once an offender's fingerprints are entered into the fingerprint database.

"If they are arrested, it will speed up the intervention by parole officers and helps the DOC track recidivism," he said.

Down the road further, Sexson anticipates this notification feature being used by other state agencies.

"In today's world we have background checks conducted for a lot of different purposes. Our Department of Education, for instance, conducts checks on teachers who are certified and licensed. They have to submit a fingerprint. If one of their licensees is arrested, the system would notify us that this person was certified.  If the DOE wants that subscription and notification, it would automatically notify them," he said.

Within the DOC's information system, called KASPER (Kansas Adult Supervised Population Electronic Repository), which is part of KCJIS, there are some new developments as well.

The DOC is currently field testing a new feature of KASPER that is a separate database used for tracking information about offenders under community corrections supervision.

"We will be putting online and making available to the public and private KASPER site information regarding these offenders who have been under the supervision of community corrections programs," said Bill Miskell, Public Information Officer for the Kansas DOC.

Community corrections programs in the state are typically under a local county's jurisdiction, so this additional database will allow a locally based set of data from 31 communities to be accessed.

But the DOC does not plan to stop there.

"The next step will be information regarding offenders who are under court services probation supervision. That will be a phased process. We have selected one or two counties here and the intent is to expand that," said Miskell.

Miskell said the benefits to public safety because of the accessibility to this information are many.

"We know that there are a number of law enforcement officials and others who regularly use the information. The advantage for local law enforcement is it is an accessible means of obtaining information. We're all in the public safety business," he said.

Miskell said this is important to remember when making criminal justice information available across agency boundaries. The more that criminal justice agencies can work together and share information, from sentenced offenders to those on parole to those on probation, the safer a community will be.

"The people we deal with who are sentenced to the state corrections agency are a small percentage of those who have had some kind of involvement with the criminal justice system. The majority of people are placed on probation or in the community corrections system. We have different goals, but the whole goal of public safety is something we are all involved in," he said.

Resources:

NGA Center for Best Practices Homeland Security and Technology Division - http://www.nga.org/center/divisions/1,1188,T_CEN_
HS,00.html

KCJIS Powerpoint:
http://www.search.org/conferences/2002symposium
/presentations/Monday/003-Effective_Governance_
Strategies/Lansford.ppt

SEARCH, The National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics
Integration in the Context of Justice Information Systems: A Common Understanding http://www.search.org/integration/pdf/integration%20definition.pdf
Designed to help define justice information systems integration and provide a common framework and vernacular to assist practitioners, developers and other stakeholders who are involved in planning efforts.