This section presents three cases of information integration at the County level. These cases provide exemplary strategies for achieving successful information integration in the criminal justice enterprise at the county level.

Goals of the Project: The primary goal for establishing the Justice Information Management System (JIMS) was to establish a permanent operation with ongoing support, growth, and development. JIMS was not designed to be a single project with a limited development period, but instead was designed with future needs in mind.

Brief Description: Overall, JIMS is a large operation. It began in 1977 and currently has a staff of 43 and an annual budget of over $3 million of County funds. The system contains over 180 million criminal justice records and over 85 million civil justice records. The user community consists of over 18,000 individuals from 144 county agencies, 111 other local agencies and governments, 11 state agencies, 15 Federal agencies, and over 800 subscribers. The system has grown to include civil justice information in addition to criminal justice information. JIMS includes jury management and payroll processing as well as an extensive civil justice component. JIMS also includes a GIS system adaptable to various agency needs.

Key Players: The Harris County Commissioner’s Court and the District Clerks’ Office were key champions to the establishment of JIMS.

CSFs and Results: Several factors converged to provide an opportunity for the creation of JIMS. A class action suit on jail overcrowding revealed a weakness in the county’s information systems. The County had three information systems that were unable to interact with each other. Political and organizational factors opened the window of opportunity the County needed in order to act. The County’s courts and law enforcement agencies, along with the data processing operations organization, completed an exhaustive analysis of information used by the criminal justice enterprise. It then produced recommendations for a data processing center that would replace the three disparate systems. The County ultimately chose to take an incremental approach to solving its information integration issues by developing components in smaller steps. The development decisions were based upon an understanding of information flows, business rules, and user needs.

Challenges and Future Plans: JIMS has been in place for over twenty years. Given its length of existence, the system faced problems of obsolescence. Harris County decided to stay with its grand-design architecture by migrating its legacy database to a more current technology. There are plans to enhance the system to include open warrants, address records, pawnshop data, gang information, and vehicle registration.

Goals of the Project: The goal of the Criminal Justice System Information Integration Project (CJIISP) is to create an information network that allows agencies real time access to the information of other criminal justice agencies. The scope of this integration effort encompasses all law enforcement agencies within Hennepin County, city and county prosecutors, the courts, probation and parole, the local jail, and the local post-sentence incarceration facility. Similar integration efforts using the compatible integration middleware are being pursued in other counties within Minnesota. A statewide office called CriMNet is responsible for orchestrating these county-level efforts and for providing integration services to allow access to information between counties and from counties to state criminal justice agencies.

Brief Description: Hennepin’s County Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee (CJCC) oversees the county’s integration effort. CJCC was formally established in 1998, but had been in place informally for twelve years prior. CJIISP was a natural fit for this multi- agency committee. Currently CJCC is working under a memorandum of understanding. CJIISP began in 1999.

Key Players: Each of the local criminal justice agencies cited above are represented on the CJCC and provide high-level guidance for this information integration effort. In addition, representatives from Hennepin County serve in an advisory capacity on various state-level boards created to guide the CriMNet initiative. Funding for these integration initiatives comes from the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Minnesota State Legislature. Private industry in Minnesota has also played a major role in the initial success of the endeavor.

CSFs and Results: CJIISP was initially a county effort, but eventually grew into a statewide project. The executive director of Minnesota Business Partnership was able to explain to the State Legislature the complex process of integrating information systems and how applying corporate "best practices" could help the state to integrate its criminal justice information. The State Legislature was very supportive of the idea of establishing a statewide criminal justice information system. Within Hennepin County, real-time data exchanges have been implemented between arrest events (law enforcement) and pre- sentence detention (the Sheriff and pretrial evaluations performed by Community Corrections) and prosecution (County Attorney). Real-time data exchanges between prosecution and the courts have also been implemented.

Challenges: With a population of over 1.1 million, Hennepin County is the largest county in Minnesota. It is the most complex county in the State. At one time the system was too slow to keep up with the demands placed upon it. The CJIISP also lacked standard purchase order numbers across the systems.

Future Plans: CJIISP plans to conduct an analysis of city prosecution business functions to streamline their activities by leveraging information already captured by law enforcement. There are also plans to develop event-driven application adapters for the systems of records used by Adult and Juvenile Probation. CJIISP is also working on integration analysis and development for the introduction of a new statewide court system.

Goals of the Project: The current goal of the Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) is to incorporate new technology and new features into the system.

Brief Description: CJIS began in 1984 and was built over a seven-year period. Over time it grew into a five county effort. The consortium began when key justice officials from Kern, Marin, and San Joaquin counties pooled financial resources to develop a new information system. This cooperative approach has worked very well for the counties involved. Each member of the consortium was responsible for developing and working on the components that were most important to it. As a group, the counties agreed upon which standards to use. A contractor was then hired to develop the initial code. The District Attorney Case Management (DARWIN) phase 1 has been implemented and is considered successful. The system interfaces with the CJIS database and provides technology enhancements including MS Office, imaging, and Web interface.

Key Players: The Marin County Information Systems and Technology (IST) Department played a major role in the development of the Criminal Justice Information System.

CSFs and Results: CJIS has become a national model for cooperation in criminal justice information integration. It is an example of interorganizational cooperation and resource sharing.

Challenges: The Marin County justice community is being served by an increasing number of discrete systems. The system currently only provides access to adult criminal, civil, and juvenile justice information. Probation case management was added to the system in 2002.

Future Plans: Marin County and the other members of the consortium are in the process of developing a new integrated justice system – E-JUS. E-JUS will provide greater connectivity and enhance the ability to share and view data amongst the systems. The consortium has plans to add a system in 2003 – Law Enforcement Information (ALEIS). There are plans to add a new Statewide Information System for the Courts in 2004.

Table 4. County Overview

County	Integration Approach	Start Date	Levels of Government	Governance Structure	Funding
Harris County, Texas	Incremental / Systemic Capacity	1977	County	Yes	Funded by Harris County
Hennepin County, Minnesota	Comprehensive / Systemic Capacity	1999	Grew into Statewide Project	Yes	Funded through the State Legislature
Marin County, California	Incremental / Systemic Capacity	1984	Multi-County	Yes	Funded through resources provided by member counties