More and more justice agencies are adopting the Global JXDM and NIEM standards as they realize how they can help eliminate redundant data entries and inefficient data delivery methods. Among these agencies are the Maui County Prosecutors and the Hawaii Attorney General’s Office. They, along with Hawaii’s police, correctional staff, and courts make use of two centralized information tracking systems called the Hawaii Juvenile Justice Information System (JJIS) and the Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS). These systems, which are maintained by the Hawaii Attorney General’s Office, allow users to track the status of juveniles and adults throughout the criminal justice process with the objective of restoring them as productive citizens.
In the past, entering information into JJIS and CJIS was an incredibly time-consuming process. The disparate case management software utilized by the state’s different justice agencies did not allow for data sharing. Instead, each agency had to enter their juvenile data into their own case management systems and then create duplicate entries in the JJIS. If they had any adult data they had to do the same with CJIS. This laborious process greatly slowed the flow of information, inhibiting the ability of the justice community to effectively help juvenile offenders.
In early 2005, the Hawaii Attorney General’s Office contracted New Dawn Technologies to implement JusticeBroker, a Global JXDM interface that would enable the Hawaii state government to improve communications between jurisdictions and successfully manage the state’s juvenile and adult criminals. JusticeBroker allowed the Maui County Prosecutor’s Office to easily map their code tables to the similar codes of the JJIS and CJIS systems. Data was able to be translated as it entered and exited each system without changing the meaning of the data or how it appeared in the originating system. The universality of JusticeBroker’s Global JXDM interface also allowed data exchanges to be understood and interpreted regardless of computer system or platform.
JusticeBroker now facilitates seamless bidirectional data exchanges between the JustWare database in the prosecutor’s office and the JJIS and CJIS systems. All of these data exchanges are done automatically on a schedule; no manual transaction is required
The Global JXDM and NIEM provide the criminal justice community with a common ground for the exchange of information. To the extent that justice agencies adopt these standards, the easier it will become to send information and have it applied in disparate information systems. As Global JXDM and NIEM are supported by the United States government, it is in the interest of all justice agencies to implement these standards in their case management and information sharing software.