Inmate Information Network is Activated Darby Patterson - Jun 02, 2003 -- CONCORD, Mass. -- The Suffolk County Sheriff's
Department implemented an application that helps manage and share critical
inmate information in two of the county's "intermediate" facilities. The
department serves Boston and several nearby communities. The Men's Center
in Boston and the Women's Center in Jamaica Plain house nearly 1,000 offenders
and perform approximately 30,000 drug and alcohol tests annually. Sheriff
Andrea Cabral selected the Attendee Information Manager from Sageful Corp.
to form the foundation of the innovate project.
The AIM application is located in the sheriff's data warehouse and networked
to the community corrections centers. Consequently, the results of drug tests
and events recorded in the centers can immediately be shared with interested
parties that, in the past, have been unable to exchange information.
According to Stefan LoBuglio, deputy superintendent for Suffolk County,
the change required more people- skills than technology. "We are still in
the process of implementing the system and that poses a challenge to existing
practices," he said. "People are wedded to existing practices. Much of the
data was captured in different locations and people had a high comfort level
with those systems and were not aware of how inefficient those systems were."
The task of taking attendance and performing drug tests in correctional
institutions has been a labor intensive and somewhat unreliable activity
with inmates occasionally inventing ways to beat the system. The AIM application
supports bar coded ID cards that make attendance-taking more reliable; bar-coded
specimen cups and tablets bearing electronic signatures. (The tablet is a
device much like the digital signature screen widely available at retail
outlets.) This system of digital assurances, according to LoBuglio, will
be particularly useful in establishing chain-of custody and will provide
judges with accurate information about an inmate's behavior over time.
"The data on participation and compliance will be carefully collected," LoBuglio
said. "It is certainly to their [the inmate's] advantage to have it collected
so we can make decisions in their favor."
LoBuglio said the decision to streamline and automate these processes grew
out of frustration with a complicated system that is far from perfect. "One
of the challenges of the criminal justice system is the fragmentation. There
are all these different agencies involved in the process and we don't have
common data systems," he explained. "This allows us to stitch together unified
data systems and record keeping that transcends agencies. It's very exciting." LoBuglio
added that data is shared with the courts directly. If a judge is sitting
on the fence about a particular petitioner before the court, he or she he
doesn't have to make a decision just based solely on judgment. Verifiable
data will be available.
The Sheriff's Department believes the new digital process will create cost
savings along with serving the cause of justice. |
