Information Technology
In recent years, electronic information has
become a driving force in commerce and
popular culture and, in many ways, it has
helped fuel an atmosphere of ever-growing
public expectations regarding effective and
efficient government service. Information
sharing has never been so important.
OJP, including BJA, recognized the need for
effective information sharing in 1998, when it
established the Information Technology (IT)
Initiative. The IT Initiative facilitates improved
communication and information sharing at all
levels of government and across all disciplines
of the justice system. This funding and
technical assistance initiative has helped
states and local jurisdictions establish,
integrate, and upgrade information systems
and identification technologies, increasing
their ability to prevent and fight crime.
The goal of BJA’s Information Technology
Policy Office is to facilitate appropriate
information sharing among justice and public
safety-related communities, increase public
safety, and improve the administration of
justice. Many of the activities related to these
efforts may be viewed on OJP’s Information
Technology Initiatives web site. The ability to share
appropriate information efficiently and
effectively is the critical “prevention”
component that ensures all levels of
government are better prepared to meet
the challenges of the future.
Information Technology Standards
Functional Standards
OJP, including BJA, is addressing standards
development from various perspectives. OJP is
sponsoring the Global Justice Information
Sharing Initiative (Global) Advisory
Committee, a group composed of justice
professionals who work collaboratively to
address the policy, connectivity, and
jurisdictional issues that have hampered
effective justice information sharing. OJP is
supporting the efforts of various justice and
public safety organizations to develop
functional standards for court automation in
the justice and juvenile justice areas.5
The Law Enforcement Information Technology
Standards (LEITS) Council brings together four
of the nation’s leading law enforcement
associations—the National Sheriffs’
Association, Police Executive Research Forum,
International Association of Chiefs of Police,
and National Organization of Black Law
Enforcement Executives—to work in
collaboration with BJA’s IT Policy Office on
information technology standards issues. The
mission of the LEITS Council is to foster the
use of strategic planning and the
implementation of integrated justice systems
that emphasize information sharing through
promotion of information technology
standards. This effort provides the
opportunity for the law enforcement
community, through the associations
represented, to speak with one voice on
these issues.
The LEITS Council is focusing on facilitating
the development of functional standards for
Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Records
Management Systems (RMS). The council has
developed a strategy that will use committees
composed of members of the law
enforcement and vendor communities and
other CAD and RMS experts to validate the
functional requirements.
The functional standards for courts are being
developed as part of an ongoing national
court automation standards program
sponsored by the Conference of State Court
Administrators/National Association of Court
Managers Joint Technology Committee and
staffed by the National Center for State
Courts (NCSC). Significant progress has been
made in preparing national functional
standards for state court case management
systems. The standards work has generated
significant interest within the courts
community; recent NCSC web site statistics
show that these documents are the most
accessed content on the NCSC web site.
The American Probation and Parole
Association (APPA) has been overseeing a
project to produce functional standards for
automated case management systems (CMS)
for adult probation. The project was
conducted in partnership with NCSC and a
standards development team composed of
probation practitioners, criminal justice
information technology experts, and
information system vendors. APPA facilitated
three meetings of project staff, NCSC staff,
and the standards team to produce, review,
edit, and enhance the draft document
defining standards for probation CMS. This
document is now available on APPA’s web site.
Finally, the Association of State Correctional
Administrators (ASCA) and the Corrections
Technology Association (CTA) have initiated a
partnership to define and develop common
functional and data exchange standards. This
comprehensive approach will involve a
number of correctional agencies.
Accomplishments in FY 2002 include the
definition of data exchanges and business
functions to be addressed.
 To further the effort to create a more
effective and efficient system of information
sharing, BJA published Mission
Possible: Strong Governance
Structures for the Integration
of Justice Information Systems
in FY 2002 to help jurisdictions
create and deploy governance
for the integration of their
justice information systems.
Survey data, coupled with case
studies, combine for a
compelling study of how to
accomplish better information
integration through governance.
Extensible Markup Language Standards
and Registry/Repository
BJA and the National Institute of Justice are
coordinating funding support for OJP’s goal
of improved information sharing through an
Extensible Markup Language (XML) project.
This work also is being supported by Global.
In March 2001, the Joint Task Force on Rap
Sheet Standardization, Regional Information
Sharing Systems (RISS), and LegalXML—now part of the Organization for the
Advancement of Structured Information
Standards—convened to discuss each of their
XML efforts and how to consolidate them. In
December 2001, the American Association of
Motor Vehicle Administrators joined the
effort because criminal justice officials often
use driver and vehicle information to identify
and locate people. The result was a Justice
Reconciled Data Dictionary, which contains
approximately 300 standard data elements. It
currently is being used in several jurisdictions.
Efforts also are underway to test several
alternatives for a registry/repository
capability. BJA is exploring the possibility of
partnering with various organizations,
including the National Institute of Standards
and Technology, National Telecommunications
and Information Administration, and
Department of Defense. In FY 2003, BJA will
develop strategies to create an operational
capability that enables justice information
system developers to build and maintain
systems that are more accessible, effective,
efficient, and interoperable.
Global Justice Information Sharing
Initiative Advisory Committee
To help guide and facilitate the efforts of the
Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative,
high-ranking officials, including the U.S.
Attorney General, reached out to key
personnel from local, state, federal, tribal,
and international justice entities to form the
Global Advisory Committee (GAC) in 1998.
The GAC membership reflects the Global
tenet that the entire justice community must
be involved in information exchange. Experts
represent the following constituencies: law
enforcement agencies, prosecutors, public
defenders, courts, corrections agencies,
probation and parole departments, and
additional agencies directly involved in the
justice process.
This group has made a positive impact on
information sharing for justice and public
safety communities. In FY 2002, the group
facilitated a web-based Standards Registry
Program—promoting national systems
interoperability—and facilitated an ongoing
Justice XML Data Project.
GAC also explored ways to improve the
personal and technical communications
systems that support the Department of
Homeland Security’s information-sharing
mission. To advance this mission, GAC formed
a new working group to examine the sharing
of intelligence, expanded the GAC
membership, and developed policies and
practices to foster increased information
sharing. GAC has engendered cooperation
among members from disparate
constituencies and levels of government,
enabling them to resolve proprietary issues in
pursuit of the common goal of sharing
information.
Building on these achievements, GAC will
promote the use and registration of standards
through the Justice Standards Clearinghouse
and explore the use of enterprisewide
technology frameworks to facilitate broad-scale
information sharing. Finally, GAC
continued to develop working groups in the
areas of security, privacy, and standards. In FY
2002, the Global Intelligence Working Group
was formed to examine and document the
particular challenges to intelligence sharing.
National White Collar Crime Center
The mission of the National White Collar
Crime Center (NW3C) is to provide a
nationwide support system for the
prevention, investigation, and prosecution of
economic and high-technology crime and to
support and partner with other appropriate
entities in initiatives addressing homeland
security. NW3C’s membership is composed of
law enforcement agencies, state regulatory
bodies with criminal investigative authority,
and state and local prosecution offices. Its
service and support efforts cross state
boundaries, bringing agencies throughout the
nation together to provide effective methods
to combat cybercrime and economic crime.
Since 1980, NW3C has equipped agencies,
through a combination of training and critical
support services, with the resources they need
to investigate, prosecute, and prevent these
growing crimes. NW3C provides these
ongoing services to its member agencies on
an as-needed basis. NW3C classroom and
computer-based training in cybercrime and
economic crime have benefitted nearly 59,000
law enforcement officers nationwide. Most
training programs are offered at no cost to
NW3C member agencies. In addition, NW3C
investigative support services help law
enforcement officials at the local and state
levels bring financial and cybercrime cases to
successful prosecution. Public record search
efforts help its members gather intelligence.
To date, NW3C has conducted more than
72,000 searches and made available
approximately $2 million in funding to help
agencies that handle multistate investigations
involving cybercrime and economic crime.
In May 2000, NW3C and the FBI partnered to
develop the Internet Fraud Complaint Center
(IFCC). A dedicated web site
provides a mechanism by which consumers
can file complaints about Internet crime. In FY
2002, the number of valid complaints filed
totaled approximately 75,000, a 67 percent
increase from FY 2001. Of the complaints
filed, more than 48,000 were referred to law
enforcement agencies on behalf of the filing
individual.
Following the terrorist attacks of September
11, 2001, IFCC’s complaint/information
handling ability was expanded to include a
Terrorist Tip Portal. Since then, significant
leads from the more than 304,000 tips
reported through the IFCC web portal have
greatly supported the FBI’s investigative
activities. In 2002, NW3C and the FBI received
the Excellence.Gov award for their
collaboration on IFCC. This award is presented
to federal government agencies that
demonstrate innovative electronic
government initiatives. In FY 2003, IFCC will
begin handling complaints of online fraud
against businesses.
SEARCH—The National
Consortium for Justice
Information and Statistics
Information is a critical component of the
justice system. Electronically sharing accurate
and complete information in a timely, secure,
and efficient manner is critical to meeting the
operational requirements of local, state, and
federal justice agencies and to complying
with state and federal mandates.
In response to this need, BJA funds SEARCH—The National Consortium for Justice
Information and Statistics. SEARCH seeks to
improve the criminal justice system and the
quality of justice through better information
management, the effective application of
information and identification technology,
and responsible law and policy. In 1998,
SEARCH and BJA undertook the Planning for
Integrated Justice Information Systems Project
to facilitate information sharing among
justice agencies and further the goals of
building an integrated justice system.
This project provides resources to jurisdictions
to enable them to document, analyze, and
reengineer information flow and business
processes within justice systems. By analyzing
information exchanges, jurisdictions can
identify flaws in their current information
processing, which can be addressed in
business process refinements and through
more comprehensive reengineering.
In FY 2002, this project provided ongoing
support to local and state jurisdictions for
integrated systems planning and
implementation by continuing to identify and
develop common documents, datasets, and
data elements for the standards initiative;
offering technical assistance and training; and
developing a certification program for public- and
private-sector individuals who will work
with the Justice Information Exchange Model
Modeling Tool©.
National Association of State Chief
Information Officers
The National Association of State Chief
Information Officers’ (NASCIO’s) mission is to
shape national information technology policy
through collaborative partnerships,
information sharing, and knowledge transfer
across jurisdictional and functional
boundaries. NASCIO represents state chief
information officers and information resource
executives and managers from the 50 states, 5
U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.
In 1998, BJA awarded NASCIO a grant to
conduct a State Information System
Architecture Survey and report its
recommendations for an architectural
template.
NASCIO published guidance documents
supporting enterprise architecture initiatives,
including Business Case Basics and Beyond;
Public Sector Information Security: A Call for
Action for Public Sector CIOs; and Concept of
Operations, which present a compelling case
for developing interoperability among local,
state, and federal information systems.
NASCIO also developed a Capability Maturity
Model, which will be used to establish
baseline measurements and provide a
mechanism for measuring the progress of
state enterprise architecture programs. A
companion Readiness Assessment tool has
been developed for benchmarking the
enterprise architecture programs among the
states.
NASCIO’s program outreach and awareness
efforts have increased, along with expanded
collaboration with state and federal
organizations including the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS), National Governors
Association, and National State Geographic
Information Council. These outreach efforts
have effectively reached an audience of more
than 1,000 local, state, and federal
government officials and private sector
representatives.
NASCIO also has responded to federal
requests to assist DHS in the area of
homeland security and architecture. NASCIO
held a workshop with DHS leaders in August
2002 to discuss homeland security initiatives
as they relate to NASCIO’s and the federal
government’s architecture efforts. NASCIO
hosted a larger meeting in October 2002 to
facilitate information sharing between the
federal government and the local and state
first responders who must address the threats
and potential attacks against the nation.
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