There were a number of consistencies among the integration initiatives that suggest some necessary ingredients for success. One is coordination. Coordination and control mechanisms of one sort or another were part of every initiative, and integration seems unlikely to advance without an effective mechanism to support communication, collaboration, and some sort of authoritative decision making among the many players in the enterprise. In most cases, this mechanism was the result of policy making or executive action in the form of legislation or executive order. The resulting governing or coordinating body thereby has authority to exercise some direction and control over developments. This was the case where a so-called “full frontal assault” was underway. In some cases there was no authoritative body, but the interested parties created functioning informal mechanisms. Examples are the Forum on Justice and Public Safety in the 21st Century in California and the Alabama Law Enforcement Technical Alliance. Informal mechanisms are less likely to produce or support a comprehensive integration effort but rather promote more selective approaches.

Closely connected to a coordinating mechanism are the development of trust, participation, and buy-in. A number of key participants in these initiatives described the process as primarily political, not technical. That is, success was more dependent on forming successful relationships and building trust than on using any particular technology. Since integration necessarily involves many possible conflicts and competing interests, there are ample opportunities for distrust and defense of turf. Careful attention must be paid to building trust and buy-in through power sharing, positive incentives, and emphasizing both shared and individual interests and objectives.

One of the key reasons for the importance of trust, participation, and buy-in is the importance of standards in the achievement of integration objectives. Standards that represent agreement and consistency in data elements, their definitions, data manipulations, operational procedures, and application design are necessary to most integration efforts. Decisions on standards typically require individual agencies or jurisdictions to lose some control over their own operations and often incur costs to change procedures, train staff, or adopt new equipment or applications. In other words, standards are often expensive and burdensome, albeit necessary. Agreeing on standards and accepting those costs usually requires considerable trust in the overall operation and governance structure, as well as buy-in to the overall design and vision of expected benefits.

Initiatives based on more comprehensive planning and a long-range perspective also seemed to achieve a wider, more systematic range of objectives. This observation may be in part a result of the wide differences in time frames across the many initiatives. The oldest ones had 20+ year histories, while the newest were less than a year old, or in some cases pending actual implementation. Integration efforts that have been underway for a long time are naturally more likely to reflect a concern for planning and a long-range perspective, but it is not clear which is a cause and which an effect of success. However, the histories of the longer duration efforts do suggest an answer to this puzzle. The efforts that were based on comprehensive, long range plans from early stages, such as in Harris County, have achieved a more comprehensive and systemic set of objectives. By contrast, California has several integration initiatives of long duration, but has not had a comprehensive plan. The result is a mix of relatively loosely-connected projects and separate systems.

The development of effective information flows and system designs also requires a well developed understanding of the business process. The design of information architectures and applications requires clear and highly-detailed knowledge of the specific procedures that generate or use criminal justice information. Since the operation of the entire criminal justice enterprise involves hundreds of complex procedures spread over many agencies and locations, building the necessary knowledge base is a very large but necessary task. In Harris County, the mapping of procedures and requirements in the required detail took two years. Without that level of understanding of operations, the design of an integrated information system will not be able to support and enhance the business processes.

Without sustained input of adequate financial resources, of course, these other ingredients cannot be effectively employed. It is also clear that the approach to financial support should reflect the institution-building perspective described above, rather than spending for discrete projects. That is, the maintenance and continued development of integration requires an ongoing commitment of resources. Information technology quickly becomes obsolete. Developing capacity for information integration can generate demand for even more capability. And, the number of possible integration objectives and operational features is quite large and will continue to expand as the technology evolves.