Alaska automates information exchange between Alaska Courts case management system, Public Defender
Colorado, CO — January 14, 2004 — The state of Alaska has chosen to implement a criminal justice data exchange program from XAware Inc. to enable criminal justice agencies to securely share information.
The proof of concept phase of this project was completed in December, automating information exchange between the Alaska Courts case management system and the Public Defender's office. This first exchange eliminates the need to manually process over 2,500 Appointment of Counsel Notices each year. Based on the cost savings achieved with the first proof of concept exchange, future phases could automate as many as 30 additional exchanges already documented.
"XAware software was a natural follow-up to the exchange analysis the MAJIC [Mapping Alaska's Justice InterChanges] team recently completed," said Debbie Cook, chief information officer for the Alaska Court System. "XAware allows for the development and management of data exchanges in a rapid development environment, providing the leverage necessary for scalable system-wide implementation."
XA-iServer is an XML-based data integration and exchange engine that creates XML documents of information from disparate criminal justice systems across agencies. The XA-iServer retrieves, translates, transforms and aggregates disparate information into unified XML documents, such as rap sheets, arrest warrants, charging reports and hundreds of other documents used within criminal justice proceedings.
XAware preserves the security of information it processes by integrating with existing authentication, authorization and encryption technologies and by restricting access to sensitive data by user/role and content rules.
The project (MAJIC) is managed by Alaska's Criminal Justice Information Advisory Board (CJIAB), which advises the Department of Public Safety (DPS) and other justice agencies on developing and operating criminal justice information systems.
The MAJIC team includes members from the Alaska Court System, DPS, Anchorage Municipal Prosecutor's Office, Public Defender Agency, University of Alaska Justice Statistical Analysis Center and the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center-Northwest (NLECTC-Northwest).
The NLECTC-Northwest was established to provide assistance in defining requirements for information and operational technology. Founded in 2001 under the National Institute of Justice, the program identifies, evaluates, demonstrates and assesses technology applications for state and local law enforcement and corrections agencies.
SEARCH, the National Consortium of Justice Information and Statistics, participated through the use of the JIEM tool (the Justice Information Exchange Modeling tool), an application that documents and provides analysis on criminal justice data exchanges. Once exchanges are documented using the JIEM tool, in many cases the next step is to implement electronic exchanges using the XA-iServer from XAware.
"XAware is excited to be working with the state of Alaska, SEARCH and NLECTC on this statewide project," said Bill Miller, Xaware's CEO. "The XML-based XA-iServer was designed to rapidly enable agencies to exchange information in a secure environment while leveraging industry standards like XML and JusticeXML."
