Crisp County Data Exchange Project

Attention: In order to reflect the growing scope of the Data Exchange Project, the Project Web site is now hosted at CJCDX.org and will be maintained there. This site will remain as an archive.

Overview

The goal of this project is to electronically share information among the criminal justice agencies in Crisp County, GA. Criminal Justice Data Integration improves the accuracy of criminal justice records, and more importantly, it improves the efficiency and speed of the criminal justice process by allowing each agency to maximize its resources.

About Criminal Justice Data Integration

Many Criminal justice agencies across the country rely on records management software to organize and track vast amounts of information. These agencies work together and share vital information everyday. However, because the computer systems they rely on do not communicate with each other, the information exchange that happens everyday is slow and prone to error.

Until recently, the only solution to such a problem was to put all criminal justice agencies on a single computer system. Now, however, thanks to the development of XML and other web technologies, these disparate computer systems can be linked in certain ways while maintaining their integrity.

Integration in Crisp County

The Crisp County Project is unique in many respects. First, it is one of a the few integration projects that seeks to involve all pertinent players in the criminal justice system. Many projects have designed data exchanges among law enforcement agencies, or among court officers. However, the Crisp County project has designed a system to integrate the courts, the District Attorney's, the public defenders, and law enforcement, thus improving the entire criminal justice process.

Second, the Crisp County project has been intentionally kept small. Project organizers realize that integration projects are difficult, and notoriously prone to failure. But the Crisp County project has been kept small to avoid some of the bureaucratic entanglements that so often inhibit these projects. Project leaders are determined to show success on a small scale, and then to build from there. This project will then serve as a model for other counties and circuits as they plan similar integration projects.

Integration Details

JIEM modeling revealed what project organizers believed; that the Warrant is the crucial document in Crisp County. Arrest warrants involve all the participants in the Criminal Justice System, and entering the same data in each agencies computer system eats up valuable resources.

Therefore, the Crisp County system will automate the arrest warrant process. Court's will have real time access incident report information. Law enforcement will automatically receive warrants as the court issues them.

In addition, court officers, District Attorneys and Public Defenders will receive notification of arrests that are made, as well as up-to-date jail lists.

In short, the most common and time consuming exchanges will be automated, thus accelerating the justice process, and freeing up resources for every agency.