Solutions

Inter-Agency Electronic Information Sharing

Business Problem

Synchronize Data between various statewide Law Enforcement Agencies

The California Department of Justice (CalDOJ) is mandated with maintaining statewide Criminal History data. Many local law enforcement agencies in the state maintain their own set of Criminal History data, and send that data to CalDOJ. Additionally, the FBI maintains the same Criminal History data. When a Criminal History record is created, the synchronization is not a major problem. However, any time updates or corrections are made to the data, synchronizing data with the local law enforcement agency and the FBI is often problematic and can include delays.

Solution

Data Exchange Platform

The Justice Automated Data Exchange (JADE) platform was developed to solve the problem of data exchange between CalDOJ and its constituent law enforcement agencies. Because many law enforcement agencies process and track criminals differently (different processes, different systems, some on behalf of others, etc.), Cloverleaf's flexible solution involves three features that can be utilized as appropriate by each agency.

Web Interface

The secure web interface allows users to enter corrections and updates in real-time. Each update is entered one at a time by a human in real-time. This feature is available to all agencies, and is well suited for those agencies without their own Records Management Systems (RMS).

System-to-System

For law enforcement agencies with their own Records Management System (RMS), the "one at a time" human method is not as efficient as System-to-System updates. The secure web service allows an agency's RMS system to exchange data directly with CalDOJ in real-time. Data is transferred using the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) standard.

Notifications

Additionally, the update exchange provides update notifications to subscribing agencies when their records are updated at CalDOJ. This feature includes secure web service calls whereby CalDOJ sends updated data to subscribing agencies, and/or email notifications. For email notifications, no sensitive data is sent, only transaction IDs — agency can then log into the web interface and view the update information.

Real-Time

All updates are performed in real-time. Any updates that are not successful (for any reason) are routed to a work queue that is processed by the same staff that used to process all the paper.

Secure

All data is encrypted, and all users and RMS systems are authenticated and authorized using the latest security technology.

NIEM Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD)

CloverLeaf developed the JADE Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD), which describes the NIEM exchange details for JADE. California law enforcement agencies wishing to participate can use the IEPD to develop the necessary exchange components.

CloverLeaf Added Value

Criminal History records (aka Rapsheets) have been formatted to work with older viewing and printing means — text terminals and line printers. Many people have a hard time finding information about a criminal on the rapsheet, sometimes due to internal codes that require paper translation tables.

During the design phase, CloverLeaf developed a prototype of a contemporary-formatted rapsheet that contained the same content, but was much easier to read. This was achieved with the use of CSS to render the rapsheet with readable spacing, font faces, font sizes, and color. All stakeholders liked the new format, so it was included in the final solution.

Benefits

Previously, all corrections and updates to Criminal History records were made by sending paper documents (via US Mail or Fax) to CalDOJ, where a large number of full-time staff would manually enter the data into the Criminal History System. This process was inefficient, costly, backlogged, and prone to errors. JADE has eliminated the backlog, reduced the number of staff needed to process data, and greatly reduced errors that stemmed from illegible handwriting.

JADE has provided measurable cost savings to the State of California.