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OPISIS - January 2010 Report

Orleans Parish Information Sharing and Integrated Systems Strategic Plan and Status Report

January 2010


OPISIS Goal:
The primary goal of the Orleans Paris Information Sharing and Integrated Systems (OPISIS) program is to improve the criminal justice system in New Orleans by improving the timeliness, quality, and completeness of information at all stages of the criminal justice process.


OPISIS Key Objectives:
1) Establish a permanent governance structure for cooperative efforts to improve New Orleans criminal justice information systems;
2) Implement efforts to improve information systems within each agency by:
a) Replacing manual systems with modern automated systems
b) Replacing inadequate computer applications with modern computer systems with enhanced features;
c) Providing temporary or permanent information technology professionals to manage new or existing systems;
d) Integrating multiple systems within an agency or replacing multiple systems with a single, more comprehensive, system;
3) Improve information sharing among agencies by:
a) Automating information exchanges;
b) Creating information management applications that are shared by multiple agencies;
c) Integrating existing applications across agencies;
4) Improve the quality of information throughout the system by:
a) Sponsoring efforts with and between agencies to error check and correct information in existing systems;
b) Establishing improved mechanisms for automated error checking at data entry;
5) Enhance the capacity for fact-based decision-making by:
a) Building or requiring extensive pre-designed and ad hoc reporting capabilities in every new or enhanced computer application;
b) Expanding the scope of information available in electronic form;
c) Expanding the availability of information among agencies and to the public.

Most OPISIS projects address a number of these objectives. For example, the CourtNotify electronic subpoena management system (described below) is designed to be shared by the Criminal District Court, the District Attorney, NOPD, the Orleans Public Defender, the Criminal Sheriff, and Municipal Court. All of these agencies will use a common system to send and receive subpoenas and notices, record service, manage witness information, schedule inmates for transport to court, and monitor activity to manage time and workload and ensure accountability. The selection and implementation of this application was a product of the first objective (establishment of a governance structure) and will result in achievement of the remaining four (improvement of agency systems, improved information sharing, improved information quality, and improved availability of information for decision-making.



OPISIS Strategy:
New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation (NOPJF) strategies are a reflection of the realities of large criminal justice systems. In New Orleans, as in most jurisdictions, criminal justice agencies are directed by elected officials or the appointees of elected officials, and the interests of those agencies are in part common and in part in conflict. Every agency has its own distinct function and the interactions of those agencies are often characterized by lack of trust, lack of understanding of other agencies’ business processes, competition over financial resources, space, and status, and concerns about legal and political liability which leads to finger pointing and denial when problems are brought to light. In addition, computer-based information systems have historically been developed by each agency independently, usually without consultation with other agencies and narrowly focused on a single agency’s needs. Often these systems simply duplicated the workflows of the manual, paper-based systems they replaced and failed to take advantage of the opportunity to reengineer old business processes that modern information systems provide.

For all these reasons, the New Orleans criminal justice system was, with some exceptions, characterized by separate “stovepipe” computer systems that shared limited information or were inadequate in a variety of ways. Some agencies had multiple stovepipe applications that shared no information even within the agency.

In a variety of ways Hurricane Katrina brought these deficiencies into a glaring light. Obviously, the first lesson of Katrina was the importance of disaster recovery plans and provision for backup sites that allow an agency reestablish operations soon after a disaster. But the loss of access by all agencies to their information systems for weeks and sometimes months made them aware of their critical operational importance, and the impact of the loss of access to information from other agencies showed their interdependence.

NOPJF is a nongovernmental nonprofit agency with the purpose of improving the New Orleans criminal justice system. The NOPJF OPISIS program emphasizes cooperative and consensus-based decision-making by all major New Orleans criminal justice system agencies, and has established a simple but effective governance structure that minimizes overhead and formality.

OPISIS objectives imply the following criteria for selection of projects:

1) Project fosters development of shared information systems;
2) Project leads to integration of existing information systems with each other, or with new applications;
3) Project addresses “pain points”: critical problem areas affecting multiple agencies that can be remedied with new or improved information systems;
4) Project develops agency capacity to exchange or manage information, through replacement of existing applications or development/acquisition of new applications;
5) Project develops agency capacity to exchange or manage information by the addition of temporary or permanent IT professionals.

Just as many projects meet multiple objectives, many OPISIS projects meet multiple criteria. The CourtNotify subpoena system, for example, is a shared information system that addresses the critical problem of subpoena service, especially in post-Katrina New Orleans. The Comprehensive Evidence Management System is a system shared by NOPD and the Criminal District Court Clerk that replaces each agency’s inadequate evidence inventory system and directly addresses post-flood evidence problems, and impacts the ability of DA’s and judges to efficiently manage cases in the court system.


Description and Status of Current OPISIS Projects
During the initial year of OPISIS, criminal justice stakeholders were surveyed extensively on their existing technology environment and key needs related to access, reliability and availability of data and information. The findings were compiled into an overall Needs Assessment Report in May of 2006. That Assessment has guided the OPISIS Executive Board and Technology Steering Committee in its planning and prioritization of projects.

Based on that Assessment and the criteria for project selection, as well as subsequently identified priorities and opportunities, the following projects have defined. Many were or can be implemented with currently available funding. Some can be partially accomplished and others will need additional resources. Each of the projects is listed and described below along with an update on the current status of implementation.

1) Disaster Recovery/Hot Site for Criminal Sheriff’s Office and Criminal District Court Information Systems.
OPISIS has funded a hot-site disaster recovery location for the OPCSO IBM AS400 and servers on which reside the Sheriff’s jail management system and Orleans Criminal District Court’s case management applications.

STATUS: COMPLETED

2) Electronic Subpoena System for Orleans Parish Courts and Justice Agencies
The Orion Corporation’s CourtNotify application (CNS) is a comprehensive electronic subpoena production, delivery, service tracking and management system shared by the Criminal District Court and Clerk, OPCSO, NOPD, the District Attorney, the Public Defender (OPD), the Municipal Court, and, in the future, the Juvenile Court.

STATUS:
The production system has now been activated; contract personnel employed by NOPJF completed “catch-up” witness data entry at the Clerk and DA’s offices for the six Criminal District Courts initially participating. Another NOPJF contractor supervised their work and trained docket clerks and minute clerks in use of the system. The NOPJF contractor assigned to catch-up data entry for state witnesses trained DA personnel in use of the system. Orion performed onsite training for administrators, supervisors, the Compliance Unit, and ICOs at NOPD.

The system went live for the six participating district courts on February 2, and all Criminal District courts, including Magistrate Court on May 12th . Orion Corp. continued to make some fixes and adjustments to the system as minor problems were discovered during use. A number of features were added to the system, most notably address verification routines using the Sheriff’s Office’s US Postal Service Carrier Route Sort database.

A number of elements of the project are not yet fully implemented. Municipal Court, which will participate in CNS through mechanisms somewhat different from Criminal District Court, is temporarily on hold awaiting minor modifications to the court’s case management system by their vendor. OPD, which has agreed to participate in CNS, has to develop a set of witness codes to make best use of some of the CNS automated noticing features. OPD training is scheduled to take place in early 2010. The “jail list” features of the system – used by the Court , Clerk, and Sheriff to schedule and assemble inmates for court appearances - is undergoing testing but is not yet in operation.

Discussions have been held with Juvenile Court (Chief Judge Bell and his administrative and IT staff) about participation in CNS. Judge Bell expressed a strong desire to participate, and NOPJF, Orion, and the Court have held discussions on the financial and technical details. The court’s participation is currently on hold until the court moves to its new case management system. Preliminary discussions have also been held with the Traffic Court Chief Judge and staff. As in the case of Municipal Court, modifications will be necessary to the court’s case management system to use CourtNotify. Since no OPISIS funds are currently available for Traffic Court, its participation will have to be funded from other sources.

NOPJF OPISIS purchased two web servers for City MIS so that access to the system can be enabled through a web connection as well as a dedicated database server to address system performance issues. The web servers allow access over the public Internet to authorized users, so that police officers can acknowledge notices and manage their court appearance calendars, prosecutors can set up witnesses and choose service for court events, and deputies can record service of civilian subpoenas from personal or office computers wherever Internet access is available. OPISIS has provided funding to the Criminal District Court to establish wireless access throughout the court building and has purchased laptops both for the DA and OPD to access not only CNS but also their own case management systems from inside the court building or any other Internet accessible location. The DA and OPD laptops are now in use in all sections of court

A police reporting area has been established in the basement of Criminal District Court, furnished, and has been equipped with a desktop pc so that officers can log into the system when reporting for court. The NOPD compliance unit is responsible for this reporting area and manual logs of officer reporting are being maintained. NOPJF has purchased two additional desktops so that officers can log themselves in and out and indicate whether they testified, and minute clerks in court can then use CourtNotify to determine if an officer has checked in. The implementation of this CourtNotify feature is awaiting resolution of some networking issues.

The bond management module to be shared by the Criminal District Court and Clerk and OPCSO has been developed and will begin testing soon.

3) Comprehensive Evidence Management for the New Orleans Criminal Justice System
Porter-Lee’s BEAST evidence management system application was selected through an RFP-based bid process to serve as the single, shared, evidence tracking and management solution for NOPD’s Central Evidence and Property Division and the Clerk’s Evidence Division. The system will be integrated with the AS400 Criminal Court applications and NOPD’s Electronic Police Report.

STATUS:
NOPJF has issued an award letter to Porter-Lee and all parties will sign the Statement of Work by the end of July. The Statement of Work was originally expected to be completed by the end of the previous year, but took longer than expected because of the complexity of precisely defining system integration requirements with NOPD’s Electronic Police Report system and, particularly, the Criminal District Court’s case management system, which currently resides on the Criminal Sheriff’s IBM AS400. Since the court is planning to transition to an entirely new case management system within the year (see project description below), a court data integration strategy is being developed for the new evidence system which will minimize the necessity for reworking the interface when that transition occurs. (See Court Data SQL View Project described below).

A server for the system has been procured by NOPJF and temporarily installed at NOPD. File conversion from the current NOPD evidence system has been tested. Hardware requirements consisting of new desktop and laptop computers, bar code scanners, and label printers have been identified. Vendor sourcing for this equipment under state contract has been established and orders are pending. Logistical planning for simultaneous deployment of new equipment, conversion to new software, and end-user training is underway.

Currently, only data from the New Orleans Property and Evidence Division is scheduled to be converted to the new system, and this data has been made available to Porter Lee for conversion. There are no plans to convert legacy data from the Clerk of Court at this time.

In conjunction with the ASPIRES program and the Innocence Project of New Orleans, additional funding has been obtained to hire staff to complete an exhaustive inventory of existing evidence, beginning in January 2010. Interviews for project director are currently in progress. The end result of this effort will be to provide the new evidence management system with a validated and accurate inventory of evidence in custody, further enhancing confidence in the viability of the new systems.



4) Case Management and Professional IT Support for the District Attorney
The District Attorney has recognized the need for a high level IT professional, on a full-time basis, to review the Office’s use of its CRIMES system and solve some technical problems to enable that system to accept electronic downloads of booking and Magistrate list information from the Sheriff’s AS400.

STATUS:
Candidates were interviewed and a selection was made by NOPJF and the DA. The individual has begun work in the DA’s Office and is currently developing a screening case management system that will create the ability to 1) receive arrest and court data electronically from the Sheriff’s AS400, 2) manage the assignment and tracking of cases, 3) receive and account for police reports electronically, 4) print the Screening Action Form and Bill of Information, 5) transmit the SAF and Bill in electronic form to the court, sheriff, and CRIMES. He is also working with NOPJF on a mechanism for importing court information (defendant, charge, event schedules and dispositions, etc.) directly into CRIMES to replace the current manual data entry process. This will probably be accomplished as part of the Court Data SQL View Project described below.

NODA is now receiving arrest and booking data from the OPCSO on an automatic basis via FTP. NODA pulls the data into an application process which then populates an internal database, generates a dataset summary and arrest record reports which is available on an internal network using a web browser, and then populates the CRIMES server with the available data in a separate testing area. The arrest data push to CRIMES has now been engineered and is operating.

The DA has completed development of an electronic version of the Screening Action Form designed to be transmitted to the Sheriff, Clerk, and NOPD in connection with the Magistrate Court, OPCSO Booking Modernization, and NOPD Investigative Case Management System projects.

OPISIS has funded the purchase of 41 desktop computers so that the new screening application and CRIMES can be reliably and efficiently accessed inside the DA’s office and 20 laptop computers so that ADA’s can access these systems from Criminal District and Juvenile Courts.

5) Case Management and Professional IT Support for the Public Defender
NOPJF, through OPISIS funding, is supporting a programmer to develop a custom-designed case management system for OPD that can import initial appearance data from the OPCSO Booking/Magistrate applications and court event data from the AS400 CMS and export data to the Louisiana Public Defender Board system.

OPISIS is funding the purchase of 20 laptop computers so that OPD attorneys can access the system from courtrooms in Criminal District and Juvenile Courts.

STATUS:
The OPD CMS is functional but all needed features are not yet in place, and work is ongoing with contractors funded by OPISIS. The Orleans Public Defender's Case Management System has completed multiple features and improvements and has other major new changes under development:

a) Seamless integration of arrest register data. The data from arrest registers reduced manual data entry by administrative staff and improved data accuracy.
b) Interface for assigning attorneys and other staff to cases. The system now tracks full assignment history as well as identifying lead members of the team.
c) Dashboard for attorneys and staff with upcoming case events and case tools.
d) Supervisor tools for case assignments and management.
e) Improvements in the data export process to the state defender board.
f) System performance improvements.
g) Improvements in management of multiple case clients (in progress)
h) Improvements in case load reporting (in progress)

Import of CDC case event and disposition data (awaiting availability of the Data Exchange Server)


6) Modern and Comprehensive Case Management System for Criminal District Court and Municipal Court
The Louisiana Supreme Court is in the implementation stage of a project to develop a web-based case management system called the “Louisiana Court Connection” to be shared, on a voluntary basis, by all Louisiana city courts. In the current phase there are three pilot sites under development with an expected go-live date for one scheduled next month. At the request of NOPJF, the Supreme Court has agreed to work with the Criminal District Court (CDC) as an additional pilot site on the project, as the first district court to be included in the LCC. All judges of Criminal District Court have agreed to participate. The New Orleans Municipal Court has also expressed a strong desire to adopt the LCC as their case management system, and NOPJF has agreed to support this effort as well.

The LCC will be non-proprietary and will operate on the LASC network and servers and will be maintained and managed by LASC staff and/or contractors. The Orleans Parish Criminal District Court version will operate on some servers hosted by Criminal District Court and managed by Criminal District Court and Clerk IT personnel. The system will be a comprehensive case management system that meets all the specifications of modern electronic case management systems as defined by the National Center for State Courts. It will be able to import and export electronic documents and, in New Orleans, will be designed to be integrated with the information systems of other criminal justice agencies such the Sheriff and DA as well as the Orion CourtNotify subpoena and bond management systems and the NOPD-Clerk evidence management system.

STATUS:
NOPJF, the Criminal District Court, and the Clerk in consultation with LASC legal and IT staff have decided to develop the New Orleans Criminal District Court version of the LCC through a competitive bid RFP process managed by NOPJF with the participation of the OPISIS Technology Committee.

Many of the case management system features needed for the New Orleans system are already being developed in the pilot sites. The RFP for the New Orleans system will cover all the tasks necessary to implement a full-featured, state-of-the-art case management system. Based on a vendor-led needs assessment or gap analysis, the vendor will be required to provide 1) additional functionality, 2) modifications to align the system with local business processes, naming conventions, and coding, 3) historical data conversion from AS400 CMS files, 4) integration of the CMS with other local systems, especially the Sheriff’s booking and records system and the MOTION warrants file, and 5) training and support. The Jury Management System is the subject of a separate RFP.

Originally, the LCC for the city court pilot sites was to be operational by April 2009. However, implementation has been delayed and the first city court pilot site is not scheduled for pilot start-up until early 2010. Since the New Orleans LCC is to be an enhanced version of the city court applications represented by the pilot sites, detailed definition of the pilot site screens, database structure, and business logic must be available for the New Orleans RFP vendor to define the work necessary to meet New Orleans court needs. Therefore delays in LCC implementation for the city courts has resulted in delays in implementation of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Version, probably until fall 2010 at the earliest.

One part of the current CDC Case Management System known not to be a part of the city court design of the LCC is Magistrate Court and the “bind-over” process used by the Clerk to convert magistrate number-based cases (used for pre-filing matters such as bond setting and probable cause determinations) into CDC docket cases. These functions are currently handled by a special Magistrate Court Docket system and bind-over/allotment programs on the AS400. Given this situation and the delays in implementing the LCC, the decision was made to move forward with development of a Magistrate Court module for CDC that could be put into operation by mid-summer and later incorporated into a complete LCC-based Case Management System for CDC.

This “Phase I” RFP required that the system be non-proprietary and developed with the same approach used for the LCC: web-based, SQL, .NET, and delivered as a Visual Studio Project. It is to be developed using the database structure now used in the AS400 Magistrate CMS under the assumption that data conversion to LCC database structures (not yet in final form) will be made at the time of charge filing once the complete LCC is implemented in Orleans Parish. The new Magistrate system will make use of the electronic Screening Action Form and Bill of Information now being developed by the DA and interface with the new bond system now being implemented.

The RFP was issued in early November and bids have been evaluated by the OPISIS Technology Committee. Orion Communications, Inc. was selected for the project. Completion and approval of the Statement of work is expected by the end of January.

7) Jury Management System for Criminal District Court
The LASC envisions a Jury Management System as a module to be developed as an enhancement to the LCC. The Criminal District Court has expressed a strong desire for such a system as an addition to its implementation of the LCC, and NOPJF will therefore include this function under OPISIS.

STATUS:
Criminal District Court IT staff developed an RFP for a Jury Management System which was released October 8th. Court judges and staff are currently reviewing the four bids received. Project implementation is expected to begin in January 2010 with a go-live date in June.

8) Document Imaging System for the Clerk of Criminal District Court
NOPJF, through OPISIS, funded a document imaging and archival system that has been used by the Clerk to scan, label, and store over 6 million Criminal District Court documents. These document images are ready for upload and conversion into the LCC application when it becomes operational, so that users will be able to view, online, all court documents in the court’s docket case record.

STATUS: While the document scanning and archival system is currently operational and in use, it is not yet clear how that system will have to be modified to interface with the LCC CMS applications. NOPJF is currently investigating the possibility of enhancing the existing system to make document images available to court and other criminal justice system personnel through a web-based application.



9) Modernization and Integration of the Criminal Sheriff’s Booking, Records, MOTION Mirror, and Transportation Dispatch System
OPCSO maintains a complex and highly customized booking and records system responsible for the booking of all adult arrestees in New Orleans, which shares data electronically with the Criminal District and Municipal Courts, as well as the NOPD MOTION system and the AFIS/LACCH system of the Louisiana State Police. While desiring to maintain its databases and extensive business logic application code on its large IBM AS400, OPCSO has expressed a strong desire to convert the “green screen” user interfaces of these applications to modern web-based user interfaces and to enhance the business logic features of those applications, especially to take advantage of the new opportunities for electronic document receipt and processing offered by the Criminal Court’s migration to the LASC LCC.

OPCSO and NOPD have for the past 20 years maintained a synchronized copy of the warrant and criminal history databases of MOTION (referred to as the “MOTION Mirror”) on its AS400 to support the efficiency of its booking process. This version of MOTION is a modern relational DB2 database. As part of this OPISIS project, a web-based application will be created to query and create reports from MOTION data (subject to legal restrictions on access to criminal history data), which will be available both to OPCSO users and to NOPD. In addition, the NOPD Investigative Case Management System and Crime Analysis System will be able to import data from this web-based version of MOTION and the LCC will be interfaced to automatically post arrest dispositions.

STATUS:
Construction of an RFP for this type of project is in many ways more complex, and therefore difficult, than writing requirements for a standalone proprietary application since bidders have to have a clear idea of how many different programs will need to have web-based user interfaces implemented and what business logic modifications will have to be made. The web-based “front ends” must be required to be take advantage of all the features of modern web browser interfaces and not be solely cosmetic, and be fully maintainable by OPCSO staff and contractors. The RFP must therefore provide extensive information about the current applications in use, not only at the operational level, but also at the database and code level, so that the bidder can determine the skill level and man-hour resources needed for the project.

On October 3rd, NOPJF released an RFP for the first phase of this project. This first phase focuses on development of a web-based “acceptance” process to replace the AS400 module currently in use. The new module will link to NOPD’s Electronic Police Report files or import scanned images of arrest report documents (Face Sheet and Gist) to eliminate redundant data entry by the Sheriff and move important information to Magistrate Court and the DA in electronic form. A second module, referred to as the Document Exchange Processing Module, will also be developed in this initial phase. This module will be designed to receive and process electronic documents from the DA and Courts for inmate records processing. Initially, this module will be used to process the new electronic DA Screening Action Form and Magistrate Court Releases.

Three bids were received in response to the Oct 3rd RFP, and Orion Communications, Inc. has been are selected by NOPJF and the Technology Committee. A Statement of Work is expected to be completed by the end of January and the new software is projected to be in operation by June 2010.

In early 2010, NOPJF will work with OPCSO and other OPISIS agencies to craft an RFP to complete the modernization of the booking and records system. This will require 1) an inventory of all booking and records modules currently in use, 2) an identification of all data exchanges with the court and other criminal justice agencies, and 3) a reconsideration of the uses of the MOTION Mirror data in nthe context of the adult booking system.


10) Modernization and Integration of the NOPD RAP Sheet, Juvenile, Booking, and Local Warrants System: Steps toward a Fully Integrated NOPD Records Management System
NOPD has expressed an interest in replacing or modernizing the current MOTION system, a “green screen” application designed to operate on an IBM mainframe during the early 1970’s. MOTION is a RAP sheet and warrant system which also includes modules for pawn shop, bicycle, and gun registration. The RAP sheet module database receives arrest data from NOPD Juvenile Division and from the Criminal Sheriff’s booking operation through a complex data exchange among the booking system, NOPD MOTION (maintained by City MIS on the City’s servers), and a “MOTION Mirror” on the Sheriff’s AS400. Both charge dispositions and warrant information is maintained (in some cases poorly) primarily through manual data entry rather than through electronic transfer from the courts.

NOPD desires not simply to “web-enable” the existing MOTION application but to rethink the way the MOTION components function in the New Orleans criminal justice system. All data entry of adult arrest information into the RAP sheet module of MOTION is done through the OPCSO booking system interface (the MOTION Mirror on the OPCSO AS400 is maintained as part of that interface). Therefore rethinking MOTION should involve rethinking the OPCSO-MOTION interface. However, juvenile bookings continue to be done by NOPD Juvenile Division through the original “green screen” interface. While there may be room for NOPD-OPCSO collaboration with the adult records, the juvenile booking and juvenile criminal history records functions may need to be handled separately. Therefore there will be a need to develop a web-based booking system for NOPD’s Juvenile Division, possibly in connection with Juvenile Court’s adoption of the LASC Juvenile Court Case Management System.

The other current components of MOTION - gun registration, bicycle registration, and the pawn shop functions - also need to be replaced. This may be accomplished either by creating small web-based applications for these functions or as part of building a modern Records Management System which replaces the criminal history functions of MOTION and is fully integrated with the Electronic police report, the Investigative Case Management System, the Crime Analysis System, and the Evidence System.

STATUS:
There is no funding currently available for this project.


11) Investigative Case Management System for NOPD
The goal of the investigative case management system is to address the disparate manner of case tracking between various NOPD districts by consolidating investigative case management information into a single, agency-wide database. The system will be accessible at all levels within the department and provide differing levels of view and edit (add/edit/delete) access depending on the job assigned to each user. This system will also be capable of providing a wide array of statistical and management reports on the status of cases, investigators, investigative units, location of occurrence, and location of significant activity.

STATUS:
The functional requirements and design specifications of the Investigative Case Management system were developed by an OPISIS subcommittee composed of key NOPD stakeholders. The RFP was released on Jan 12 and bids were received February 13. After evaluation of submitted bids, no bidder was found who met the RFP requirements and all bids were rejected.

The RFP was reworked for greater clarity and to more closely align with NOPD’s immediate needs. In addition, the cost ceiling was increased to better reflect the reality of the current market for quality, proven systems. This RFP was reissued April 20 and three bids were received. Presentations by the two responsive bidders were made June 5 and scoring of the responses resulted in the decision to award the project to Column Technologies in early July.
Initial project planning began in July and the needs assessments analysis phase proceeded through August. Hardware was installed in early September and the applications and database followed shortly after. Integration with Computer Aided Dispatch systems, and Court SQL Data View system were completed in mid October. Systems development and customizations progressed steadily and the User Acceptance phase began at the end of November. NOPD began using the system in late December as Column continues to make enhancements.

During the implementation process NOPD decided to begin using the ICMS for their “A-Case” Officer function. A-Case officers are responsible for tracking police reports and ensuring their timely submission to the DA. NOPJF and NOPD determined that a reasonable extension of this functionality in ICMS is to use the application to electronically submit reports to the DA’s Screening Division, i.e., to interface ICMS and the DA’s screening management application currently under development, using the Data Exchange Server to manage the transfer and log the results. NOPD is currently working out the details of this extension with Column.


12) Homicide Records Archival System for NOPD
The New Orleans Police Department stores over seven decades worth of homicide supplemental report information that is currently not archived on any digital system. The proposed system will allow the Homicide Unit to control the archival and retrieval of past and present homicide supplemental reports as well as other homicide investigation documents. This will improve the Department’s ability to capture, manage and share information on homicide cases.

STATUS:
The Homicide Archival system is in the implementation phase with some pieces having been purchased and others in the process of procurement.


13) Automated Warrant Management System
This system is a possible expansion module of the LCC, but also is related to functions of the MOTION warrants file and the MOTION NLETS link to NCIC. Ideally, warrants management would be accomplished in a completely paperless way in an integrated fashion with appropriate MOU’s among NOPD, OPCSO, and the Criminal District, Municipal, Traffic, and Juvenile Courts. Such a system could be separated from the MOTION Modernization project (see #10 above) or included in that project.

STATUS:
Better management of warrants in Orleans Parish will be addressed by a number of ongoing projects: an existing effort to integrate the Municipal Court case management system with the MOTION warrants file, modification of the Sheriff’s Booking and Records system to automatically “locate” warrants in MOTION when a subject is booked on that warrant, and implementation of features in the new LCC Case Management System which will result in warrants issued by a CDC judge to automatically place and recall warrants in MOTION.

This project, for which funding is not currently available, will extend these efforts by developing a single web interface to search warrant information in local, state, and federal (NCIC) jurisdictions, and create a web service that local criminal justice applications can access.

14) Crime Lab Report Management System
The NOPD Crime Lab has requested a system to manage, track, and process evidence analysis reports, ideally integrated with the new evidence management system. The Lab is not yet in a position to make use of a fully functional Laboratory Information Management System and has an immediate need for a easy-to-use application to manage, track, and process reports.

Long term goals for the crime lab include a comprehensive Forensic Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS). Such a system includes features such as workflow management, standardized testing to national quality standards, instrumentation interfaces, and secure chain of possession recording. This system should integrate seamlessly with the evidence inventory management (BEAST), investigative case management, and court case management systems.

STATUS:
It has been the determined that the best approach for the Crime Lab is to use the services of an IT professional to develop a basic report management and tracking system for immediate use and assist the Lab in developing a more long term information systems plan. NOPJF’s Technical Administrator, hired to assist with OPISIS project management and technical expertise, has also taken on this role.

The current report management system resides on an obsolete Paradox database, and efforts are underway to move this system to more modern platform. Preliminary analysis and design is complete. Further development of this effort has been put on hold until implementation of the BEAST system so it may be integrated with the reporting system and the full benefit of the bar-coding of evidence can be realized by the Crime Lab. Current plans are to use current NOPJF staff for conversion and development of the new system. The records update system is at best a stopgap measure designed to keep the crime lab data management capabilities intact through future platform upgrades and does not address the long-term needs of the crime lab, which can only be met through a LIMS.

15) Crime Analysis System
This is a project to replace the current mapping and analysis system used for COMSTAT and for public web access to crime maps. It will not only improve the public’s timely access to crime information, but will improve NOPD’s ability for strategic and tactical planning. It will also replace the offense tabulation and reporting functions of the current MOTION system.

STATUS:
An RFP was developed for this project and was released April 20. A presentation by the sole bidder was made June 5 and a decision was made to accept this bid in July. Hardware and software requirements by the vendor are in the process of being procured through normal City of New Orleans bid processes. As this progresses, certain other functionality of the system has been developed based on existing information from the 911 Call Center data, and data from the MOTION Records Management System currently in use. Test data extracted from the RMS has been submitted for verification. Upon validation, this data will form the primary resource for the statistical reporting requirements of the new system.


16) Data Exchange Platform and Server with Court Information SQL Data View
There was an immediate need for access to court data by applications being developed by the District Attorney, Court, and Public Defender in the form of a modern SQL database. Such a database will exist and be accessible once the Criminal District Court (and later, Municipal Court) transition to use of the Louisiana Court Connection Case Management System (see above). However, the timing of on-going projects in these three agencies and the needs of the Evidence System, the Investigative Case Management System, and the Crime Analysis System for court status and disposition data argued for a quick and inexpensive temporary solution to court data access, which currently is available only in DB2 form on the Sheriff’s AS400 and difficult to access. The new electronic subpoena system currently consumes complete court data (case, defendant, charge, event) from the Sheriff’s AS400 via an ODBC connection every 10 minutes and converts it into SQL form inside the application’s proprietary database. NOPJF determined that Orion Communications (the subpoena system vendor) could expose this data for use on a web server accessible by criminal justice agency applications in a non-proprietary form quickly and inexpensively and tasked them with creation and maintenance of a SQL version of the AS400 court files on a “Data Exchange Server” (DES) purchased with OPISIS funds and residing on the City’s network. Later, as part of the contract with the LCC vendor, NOPJF will require that a similar or identical court data view will be provided so that DA and Public Defender applications can continue to access court data with minor modifications.

Originally the DES was intended primarily to make Criminal District Court data more easily accessible to New Orleans criminal justice agencies. However, as the OPISIS Technology Committee developed projects that required inter-agency data exchanges, it became clear that the DES could also serve as an agency-independent platform through which one agency’s application could push or publish documents and other data that other authorized agency applications could retrieve, without the necessity for engineering point-to-point connections for every application-to-application exchange.

There are available a wide variety of middleware solutions for creating a data exchange system. However no OPISIS funds are currently available for purchasing or building a sophisticated system. Instead, NOPJF and the Technology Committee will implement a simpler approach that can be accomplished with existing agency and NOPJF IT staff. This approach involves the development of event logs maintained on the DES to which appropriate agency applications have write/append access. When an a key criminal justice event has occurred (an arrest, inmate release, booking, document filing, etc.) or data or a document are posted to the DES by an application, that application will add a record to a DES event log indicating that the event has occurred or data is available (along with appropriate case and/or person identifiers). Applications needing to be aware of the event or needing the published data or document can monitor the event log for new entries, retrieve the data or documents needed, and post another event log record indicating that the data has been retrieved or a subsequent event has occurred. In other words the DES event logs will be used both for person and case tracking and to key data exchanges.

The design policy of the event log will be based on the following general guidelines:
• Single common data repository
• Data is written by the owning agency where the event originates
• Data is unique to a single:
o Individual
o Incident
o Charge
o Event
• Data complies with disclosure policy
• Data conforms to established standards
o Individual Identification method
o Charge Codes
o Event Codes
• Data is available as long as necessary
• Transactions are derived from existing applications and data
• Event recording is fully automated





STATUS:
Dedicated file server hardware has been purchased and installed at a temporary NOPD site pending relocation to a permanent facility. Initial court data loads were completed on October 17th and after some minor data update issues, the system is considered fully operational. It is currently being used by the Investigative Case and Crime Analysis systems in test mode and the Court will soon start to use it for customized reports. The DA and OPD IT staff are eager to gain access and are working with NOPJF staff on the technical aspects. Full use of the server by all participating agencies will begin once an MOU governing its use is signed by all agencies. (Document currently under development.)

Design of the event logging system is in process. Its first use may be for the exchange of police reports between NOPD and the District Attorney (see #11).


17) Data Dictionary and NIEM

Due to the large number of data systems being added, and the integration of this data, it is imperative that a comprehensive data dictionary be developed for the overall OPISIS project data. This dictionary should include the primary data origination point, the relationships of this data to other data systems, entity-relationship diagrams for all systems and functional diagrams. Requirements for this complex project include the establishment of documentation for each individual system in use, and the subsequent integration of the data and functionality of these systems. The dictionary should be cross-referenced by application, function, ownership, parent/child processes, and data structures.

NOPJF and OPISIS have not required that vendors either for COTS or non-proprietary system projects conform to National Information Exchange Model (NIEM ) data representation and transmission standards because few available COTS criminal justice applications conform to NIEM and there is little knowledge or experience either among agency staff or local IT companies using NIEM. Also, for exchanges among the limited number of local criminal justice agencies using NIEM would be much more expensive than a simpler solution such as the DES/Event Log approach. However, since NIEM will in the future represent the accepted standard for criminal justice information exchanges the Data Dictionary should include the NIEM schema as one organizing principle to ease conversion of exchanges to NIEM in the future and to form the basis of a data-sharing hub to share New Orleans criminal justice data with other jurisdictions.

STATUS:
There is currently no funding available for this project.


18) Electronic Police Report Program Upgrade
The NOPD Technology division through the help of a city contractor developed an Electronic Police Report program. The program is currently being used by four divisions in the NOPD and will be used department wide by the end of the 1st qtr of 2010 . The contractor has been terminated by the City and upgrades to the system are needed. The NOPD would like the ability to submit Arrest Gist electronically to the OPCSO Booking system and would also like to create and submit Crime bulletins from within the system.

Status:
Currently the NOPD has no means to accomplish the above task and has requested assistance of NOPJF. No funding is currently available, however.

LINK:   userfiles/OPISIS Strategic Plan January 2010(1).pdf