PA County Integration Project County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania Technical Report The County Justice Hub Solution Leveraging technology to improve inter-agency communication, coordination and information sharing among local, state and federal agencies. March 2002 Prepared by: Frank J. Antonicelli, III Stover K. Clark
Executive Summary The timely availability of complete and accurate information is critical to the operating efficiency and effectiveness of the county criminal justice system. Currently, however, vital data regarding apprehension, detainment, arraignment and sentencing is frequently not readily available to county criminal justice personnel. The lack of quality data, combined with management responsibility of more than 70% of the Commonwealth s offender population, has placed a significant burden on county executives, the judiciary and justice practitioners to deliver criminal justice services in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Over the past 10 years, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) and the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP) have led various county criminal justice policy, program and technology initiatives. Specific areas of focus have included: The development and deployment of departmental case management systems: county jails, probation departments, district attorney offices and juvenile detention centers. The development of a strategic plan and framework for leveraging technology to improve the county criminal justice system s operating efficiency. Assisting counties in establishing criminal justice advisory boards to address policy, program and technology issues. Financial support for departmental and system integration infrastructure investments. More recently, PCCD and CCAP have worked with a group of 26 counties to improve interagency communication, coordination and data sharing within a county as well as among county, state and federal criminal justice agencies via the PA Justice Network (JNET). This effort has led to the development of a single data integration platform solution referred to as the County Justice Hub. The County Justice Hub solution addresses long-standing institutional barriers that have previously impacted the operating efficiency and effectiveness of the criminal justice system. Specifically, the solution enables county justice agencies to: Maintain agency independence in the performance of its job function. Control who has access to the data, how the data is accessed and when it is accessed. Ensure the security of the computer systems and the confidentiality of the data. Obtain greater access to other agency data as well as more timely access to the data. Lastly, due to the events of the past year, an even greater emphasis has been placed on improving information sharing among federal, state and local agencies. Whether the challenge is combating terrorism or improving local criminal justice processing efforts, the needs and potential solution(s) are very similar. With this in mind, the County Integration Project participants endorse the County Justice Hub as a viable solution and tool to immediately enhance both local and national inter-agency communication, coordination and data sharing efforts. This document provides an overview of the County Integration Project, County Justice Hub solution and plans for the solution deployment. PA County Integration Project March 2002 Page 1
County Integration Project Background In 1998, PCCD and CCAP began collaborating with justice practitioners and information technology professionals representing 14 counties (Allegheny, Berks, Cumberland, Dauphin, Delaware, Erie, Indiana, Lancaster, Montgomery, Snyder, Somerset, Warren, Washington and York). The group s focus was to develop strategies to improve inter-agency communication, coordination and data sharing within a county as well as among county, state and federal criminal justice agencies via JNET. This working group - collectively known as the County Integration Project - meets on a quarterly basis and was expanded in 1999 to include an additional 12 counties (Adams, Bucks, Centre, Chester, Franklin, Lycoming, Mercer, Mifflin, Philadelphia, Pike, Union and Westmoreland). In 1999, a subcommittee of the County Integration Project was formed and tasked with documenting the county criminal justice workflow and associated information needs, from the point of arrest through the disposition of a case. This effort resulted in the identification of four distinct case processing events that were common throughout the county justice system. Specifically, county justice practitioners needed the capability to perform the following functions in a real-time manner: Query criminal justice data stored in existing criminal justice computer systems. Receive a notification or message when a change in the case status occurs. Share photographs, fingerprints and image documents when processing a case. Exchange relevant criminal justice data with other agencies when processing a case. Please refer to pages three and four for an overview of the PA Criminal Justice Process and a county criminal justice information workflow illustration Law Enforcement Investigation. In 2000, following the completion of the workflow task, industry-leading technology firms were invited to present potential county justice integration solution(s) to address the four criminal justice functional requirements identified above. The firms that elected to participate in the two day session included: the Andersen Consulting and Correctional Development International team, Deloitte Consulting, KPMG, Metro Information Systems, RBA and the Cross Current and CBIZ Trilinc Consulting team. At the conclusion of the session, the Cross Current/Trilinc team s County Justice Hub single platform solution was selected for further development and evaluation in a typical county justice environment. PA County Integration Project March 2002 Page 2
The following is an overview of the PA Criminal Justice Process. An information workflow illustration -Law Enforcement Investigation - has also been provided on the following page. PA Criminal Justice Process Offense Committed Law Enforcement Investigation Subject Arrested Handled Informally Subject Booked & Charged Charge(s) Unfounded Charge(s) Filed before District Justice Preliminary Arraignment Bindover to District Justice Preliminary Hearing Bindover to Court of Common Pleas Formal Arraignment Outcomes 1. Charge(s) Dismissed 2. Released w/bail 3. Diversion Referral, - or - 4. Detained Pretrial Motions & Conference Common Pleas Court Guilty Plea Common Pleas Trial Not Guilty Verdict Case Dismissed Guilty Verdict Pre-Sentence Investigation Subject Sentenced Appeal Process Upheld Overturned Referred to Probation/Parole Dept. or Appeal Process Upheld Overturned Referred to Correctional Facility Complete Program Supervision Violate Probation/Parole Serve Sentence/Paroled Expiration of Maximum Sentence Referred to Court of Common Pleas Gagnon Hearing 1997 PA County Integration Project March 2002 Page 3
Sample Information Workflow Illustration: 1.2 Law Enforcement Investigation Courts (Clerk of Courts) County Control NCIC/CCHRI/ CPIN via PSP/CLEAN Coroner/ Crime Lab District Attorney s Office Common Pleas Courts County Juvenile Probation Private Complaint J.Q. Citizen Search Warrants Warrants District Justice (DJ) Criminal History Check Investigative Queries Police Criminal Complaint Probable Cause Document Investigative Grand Jury Notice Grand Jury Subpoena District Attorney (DA) Wire Tap Requests Probable Cause Notice Juveniles Facing Adult Charges Notice of Investigation Criminal Complaint County Adult Probation and Parole Line-Ups Address Info Incident Info Victim Services Jail County Departments PA County Integration Project March 2002 Page 4
County Justice Hub Solution Overview The County Justice Hub (Justice Hub) solution, developed by the Cross Current/Trilinc team, is designed to address the long-standing challenge of providing county justice practitioners with a single data integration platform to support communication and information sharing needs, i.e., query, notification, imaging and data exchange. Based on a conventional hub and spoke design concept, the Justice Hub solution integrates off-the-shelf software tools and technologies into a common platform to enable real-time communication and information sharing within a county as well as among county, state and federal agencies via JNET. The Justice Hub architectural design provides a single data integration platform for the exchange and conversion of data across the criminal justice applications connected at its spokes. Adapters form connections between the hub and the existing computer systems (e.g. police, clerk of court, district attorney, jail, probation, JNET etc.) The Justice Hub technical architecture is comprised of three key components: the business-tobusiness (B2B) platform that performs the data mapping, data conversion and data integration functions; the application adapters that provide the open systems interfaces and format (extensible markup language or XML) for transporting the data; and the common or graphical user interface (GUI) for presenting and viewing the data. The diagram below outlines the relationship between these components and existing justice applications. County Justice Hub Architecture Other Justice Hubs Existing Justice Application ODBC, MQ, APIs Adapter Link and Translate XML County Justice Hub B2B Workflow and Integration Common User Interface Web Application Notifications JNET Messaging Infrastructure PA County Integration Project March 2002 Page 5
The Justice Hub design enables justice practitioners to perform the following functions in a realtime manner: Query criminal justice data stored in existing criminal justice computer systems. Receive a notification or message when a change in the case status occurs. Share photographs, fingerprints and image documents when processing a case. Exchange relevant criminal justice data with other agencies when processing a case. While enabling these functions, the Justice Hub architecture design and framework also permits county justice agencies to locally manage information by: Maintaining agency independence in the performance of its job function. Controlling who has access to the data, how the data is accessed and when it is accessed. Ensuring the security of the computer systems and the confidentiality of the data. Obtaining greater access to other agency data as well as more timely access to the data. Justice Hub Proof-of Concept To evaluate the functionality and cost effectiveness of deploying the Justice Hub solution in a typical county justice environment, the County Integration Project participants selected two justice processing business issues proposed by Cumberland and Somerset counties. Solutions for the business issues were developed using the Justice Hub platform and were ready for deployment within 100 days of the project start date. Somerset County Pilot In Somerset County, the ability to cross reference offender information stored in multiple agency computer systems was critical. Specifically, it was important that adult probation and clerk of court offender identification and location information was available in a real-time manner to the county 911 personnel. The Justice Hub offender status application enables authorized personnel in the three agencies to perform real-time cross system offender queries based on four searchable fields: first name, last name, date of birth and social security number. From a common user interface, authorized users can access this data and also have access to offender images stored in the imaging system. Cumberland County Pilot In Cumberland County, adult probation requested real-time access to clerk of court and jail offender information - updated case information, new case information and/or bail information to better manage and track the status of their cases. The Justice Hub offender status application enables authorized personnel in the three agencies to perform real-time cross system offender queries based on four searchable fields: first name, last name, date of birth and social security number. An offender notification - that automatically sends an email to the requesting user of a new offender and/or change in offender status - has also been developed and integrated into the solution. PA County Integration Project March 2002 Page 6
Summary The County Integration Project participants endorse the Justice Hub solution as a full-function and cost effective solution to address the communication and information sharing needs query, notification, imaging and data exchange within a county as well as among county, state and federal criminal justice agencies via JNET. Specifically, the Justice Hub provides counties with a solution that: Is open systems and standards based. Integrates off-the-shelf hardware and software technologies to provide a single data integration platform for the construction of integrated criminal justice solutions. Supports multi-vendor hardware and software platforms that exist within the counties. Can be customized and deployed to a county in less than 120 days. Is cost effective to deploy and maintain in their existing technology environments. Future Plans for Deploying the Justice Hub The proposed Justice Hub deployment strategy will enable the rapid and cost effective deployment of the Justice Hub solution to eight additional counties over the next 12 months. The deployment strategy emphasizes the following: Use of the Justice Hub technical architecture blueprint design as the development platform for future county justice data integration efforts. Rapid deployment, one county per month, of the Justice Hub (initial application and adapter structure) to eight additional counties. Immediate gains in work process efficiency resulting from more timely access to county criminal justice information with integrated metrics providing statistics. Significant cost savings and cost avoidance derived from a collaborative integration design, development and deployment effort. Business Case Justification It is estimated that $580,000 of the $1.1 million initial Justice Hub development and deployment evaluation investment will be reused for each additional county participating in the project. Reapplying the initial investment to the eight new counties will result in a cost savings or cost avoidance of $4.64 million alone. This figure does not reflect the $240,000 investment value of the county team building and Justice Hub architecture blueprint design efforts. It also does not reflect the value of deploying the Justice Hub solution in counties requiring minimal system customization, user interaction and information technology support. Projected cost savings and benefits become even greater for a statewide deployment. The following chart provides a synopsis of the initial project accomplishments, highlights the short-term project goals and objectives and provides a vision for the statewide deployment of the Justice Hub solution. PA County Integration Project March 2002 Page 7
Justice Hub Phased-Deployment Roadmap Phase I Initial Development and Proof-of-Concept Applications Offender ID Application: Pilot - Query and Imaging Offender Notification Application: Pilot - Query and Notifications Offender Status Updates to Prison and Parole: Pilot Data Exchange Adapters InfoCon Clerk of Courts, AS/400 DB2 CDI/DSI Adult Probation DOS based CDI/DSI Jailhouse Windows based RVI Imaging, AS/400 DB2 Deployment Counties the Justice Hub solution Somerset Cumberland Berks Benefits Project consensus and team building 100 day rapid install methodology Technical Architecture documentation Endorsement of technical architecture based on proof-of -concept Standard hardware/software configuration and installation guide Framework for budgeting and costbenefit Phase II Deployment to Additional 8 Counties Bring together offender proof-of-concept components into a more comprehensive Offender Integration Application Build on three proof-of-concept applications Deploy usage performance reporting Provide JNET MI adapter Reuse existing applications for similar instances on same platforms Modify existing applications for similar instances on new platforms Counties targeted for Justice Hub- one per month starting with Month #1. Dauphin Delaware Indiana Lancaster Montgomery Snyder Warren Washington Demonstrate return on investment Brings user group to a total of 11 counties Introduction of off-the-shelf Web-based Justice Hub Toolbox Groupware: o Manage the Libraries of documents o Manage the library of software (adapters and applications) o Communication through threaded discussions o Provide posting of ideas o Provide posting of status o Centralize project management Capitalize on JNET infrastructure Phase III Statewide Deployment Additional applications as determined valuable by the user group and business review Distribution of current application to tier two counties and beyond Substantial reuse of adapter library New adapters as necessary Counties targeted for Justice Hub Remaining three counties for tier-one o Allegheny o Erie o York 14 Tier-two counties Available to remaining 39 countries Expand user base Establish expertise throughout counties Apply architecture to other county needs PA County Integration Project March 2002 Page 8
Phase I Initial Development and Proof-of-Concept Estimated Cost $950,000 for 3 counties o $200,000 per proof-of concept including: design, development, installation, hardware and software o $150,000 Teambuilding and architecture Phase II Deployment to Additional 8 Counties Average $158,875 per county TBD ($1,255,000 for 8 counties) o $150,000 offender integration application enhancement o $25,000 per 10 new adapters o $15,000 per 5 enhanced adapters o $50,000 per county rollout o $100,000 technical project management o $40,000 CCAP administrative support o $30,000 hardware/software per county Phase III Statewide Deployment TBD ($1,725,000 for 15 counties and new applications) Average $75,000 per county for core applications including new hubs New applications $400,000 Expansion of functionality to existing hubs $200,000 Estimated Cost Avoidance Resulting from Reuse $60,000 - Some adapter reuse $4,640,000 for 8 counties $580,000 average reuse per county $400,000 Application reusability per county $60,000 average hub reuse per county $100,000 architectural design and hardware/software specifications $20,000 training and installation reuse per county $12,150,000 per 15 county cluster $810,000 average reuse per county $600,000 application reusability per county $80,000 average hub reuse per county $100,000 architectural design and hardware/software specifications $30,000 training and installation reuse per county PA County Integration Project March 2002 Page 9