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Justice Information Sharing Initiative

Ninety-Seven companies contribute toward expanded integrated justice system.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Well before the events of September 11, the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) began an ambitious initiative aimed at stimulating the law enforcement and justice community to share information more effectively with each other as they respond to crimes and process arrested offenders. The DOJ information systems integration initiative was driven by the many instances where an agency was unable to take effective action due to not knowing what other agencies may already knew about a person or event. The history of police letting a suspicious person go when there was an arrest warrant issued for the person but not available to the officer in the field and cases of lives lost as a result of incomplete information were driving new thinking about the nature of the criminal justice system and its inefficiencies.

Furthermore, feedback from a multitude of testimony by local officials about the inefficiencies of justice information systems and the massive national waste of resources in duplicating data entry into justice related computer systems led to a broadly accepted mandate to change strategies. A national consensus emerged around the recognition that it was necessary to break down the traditional barriers between justice agencies and make appropriate information more readily available to agencies with legitimate needs for information in support of improved criminal justice practices.

DOJ called upon industry to help foster these improvements throughout the justice community, and invited the formation of the Integrated Justice Information Systems Industry Working Group (IWG) as another resource to assist in this nationwide imperative. The voluntary formation of this working group by companies who are active in this field was intended to give OJP a forum for exploring the program directions and receiving a coordinated and considered response from the information technology companies who build the information systems on which most of the justice system operates. OJP officials at the time noted that "it is impossible for the justice community to achieve the ambitious goals of ubiquitous information sharing without the involvement of the industry partners that provide software and services, and the input of these partners in shaping our national agenda is critical."

After its formation, the IWG quickly began to define the impediments to effective inter-agency information sharing, and outlined a series of work products to be created in support of the OJP initiative. Then came September 11, with its grim evidence of the lack of information sharing not only between Federal, state and local agencies, but among the local agencies engaged in criminal justice. The stakes were elevated to the point where it became clear that national information sharing is no longer simply a good thing; it is essential to homeland security and our response as a nation to terrorist attacks.

Companies in the IWG have been able to set aside their normal competitive attitudes and collaborate to create a number of work products useful to practitioners in this field and a number of ongoing educational efforts. White papers and monographs have been developed on a range of topics from procurement improvement to the special security requirements related to integrated justice information systems. In collaboration with the National Criminal Justice Association, the IWG has offered a series of educational seminars on emerging technology for decision makers. The group has supplied representatives to participate in OJP led working groups dealing with information sharing through the use of XML and other modern architectures Members of the IWG are available for presentations to justice agency practitioners and to industry groups interested in the integrated justice initiative. A web site has been created to share knowledge between industry and practitioner leaders (www.ijis.org).

In responding to OJP's request for additional work products and educational opportunities, the IWG created a non-profit corporation called the IJIS Institute which has received grant funds to provide technology assistance at no cost to state or local agencies beginning on the course of building an integrated justice information system. The Institute also sponsors detailed learning seminars of interest to practitioners, including XML, Security, and data mining and sharing, and a special one week course in project management as it applies to building justice information systems. Institute programs and reports are available at www.ijisinstitute.org.