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Legal XML Integrated Justice Work Group Charter

Workgroup Information

Work Group Name: Integrated Justice

Work Group Chairs: David Roberts (david.roberts@search.org), Hugh Collins (hmc@lajao.org)

Work Group Mailing List: integratedjustice@legalxml.org

Work Group Mailing List Archive: http://www.legalxml.org/Archives/IntegratedJustice.html

Work Group Website: http://www.legalxml.org/IntegratedJustice/

Document Author

David Roberts (david.roberts@search.org)

Document Editor

Larry Webster (larry.webster@search.org)

Short Statement of Status

Active

Abstract

This is the charter for the Legal XML Integrated Justice Work Group.

Status of Document

This Legal XML Integrated Justice Work Group charter is for review and discussion by interested members.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Mission Statement 

3. Scope 
	3.1 Requirements 
	3.2 Constraints 

4. Deliverables

5. Duration and Milestones 

6. Confidentiality 

7. Coordination with Other Groups 

8. Communication Mechanisms 
	8.1 Group Home Page 
	8.2 Mailing List 
	8.3 Teleconferences 
	8.4 Face to Face Meetings 

9. Decision Procedure 

10. Participants 

11. Intellectual Property

1. Introduction

Justice agencies throughout the nation and internationally recognize the importance of integrating their information systems in order to share critical information. The need to exchange accurate and complete information electronically in a timely, secure, and efficient manner is driven by the operational requirements of agencies at the local, state and federal levels, as well as a host of state and federal legislative mandates that have been enacted in recent years. In recognition of this need to share critical data, state and local jurisdictions are actively developing plans and programs for comprehensive integrated justice information systems.

Integrated systems improve the quality of information and thereby the quality of decisions by eliminating error-prone redundant data entry. In addition, by exchanging data between systems, integration typically improves the timely access to information, a critical factor at many criminal justice decision points (e.g., setting bail). Moreover, integration enables the exchange of crucial information without regard to time or space; multiple users can access the same record simultaneously from remote locations around the clock.

Interagency integration, whether horizontal or vertical, generally refers to the ability to access and share critical information at key decision points throughout the justice process.  The data exchange functions normally considered in integration efforts between agencies include the ability to:

1. Automatically query local, regional, statewide, and national databases to assess the criminal justice status of a person (for example, determining whether a person is currently wanted by another jurisdiction, is currently under some form of correctional supervision, or has a criminal history at the state or national level).
2. Automatically push information to another agency, based on actions taken within the originating agency (for example, reporting arrest information--together with supporting fingerprints and mug shot--to the state and national criminal history repositories based on new information in the local database; when a law enforcement agency makes an arrest and enters this information in its records management system, it should push information to the prosecuting attorney's office for use in the prosecutor case intake process).
3. Automatically pull information from other systems for incorporation into the recipient agency system (for example, populating a correctional information system with offender information captured in the pre-sentence investigation, together with court sentencing information).
4. Publish information regarding people, cases, events, and agency actions (for example, both electronic and paper publishing of information regarding scheduled court events, crime mapping, availability of community resources, criminal history records, sex offender registries, etc.) The publish function, as defined here, recognizes the affirmative publication and distribution functions normally associated with delivering information to subscribers, as well as publication in channels that simply make the information available to users via web sites, fax-on-request, posting in public places, etc.
5. Subscribe to a notification service (for example, probation agencies and perhaps individual probation officers should be able to formally subscribe to a notification service that will automatically notify them whenever one of their clients is arrested or otherwise involved in the justice system, as should prosecutors with cases pending against a defendant, judges who have suspended sentencing or otherwise suspended proceedings regarding a defendant, and other actors in the justice enterprise).

It should be noted that these data exchange functions are consistent with information sharing modalities identified in the recently published NASIRE report, National Information Architecture: Toward National Sharing of Governmental Information (Lexington, KY: National Association of State Information Resource Executives (NASIRE), 2000), at p. 4.

Integration does not mean that justice agencies will exchange all information regarding a particular person or case, but rather that they will exchange relevant and appropriate information at defined events or in defined circumstances. Accordingly, for purposes of this effort we define integration as the ability to access and exchange critical information electronically at key decision points throughout the justice enterprise. Justice agencies have a series of conversations at these key decision points in the justice process, i.e., discrete exchanges of information between two or more agencies (or units/divisions within a single agency).

The analogy of a conversation is particularly appropriate given the nature of the information exchanges contemplated in integrated justice information systems. The exchanges are complex and evolving: one agency may initiate an exchange, which will trigger a response by a second (recipient) agency, which in turn may trigger additional value-added exchanges by the initiating agency, which can now incorporate information (such as the state identification number (SID)) generated through the first exchange.

It is also important to recognize that these exchanges, like conversations, must have both a context and a protocol. Parties to a conversation must have some agreement, formal or implicit, that their communication will focus on a topic of relevance (or at least interest) to each party, and there may be specific objectives for the conversation, e.g., a defense attorney explaining plea options to a defendant in preparation for the arraignment. In addition to context, there must be agreement regarding the protocol for the conversation, which may include such elements as the language that will be used, the roles of the participants, and how misunderstandings will be resolved

There are at least four dimensions of information exchange that are relevant to integrated justice information systems research, design, development, and implementation. These dimensions are:

1. Events that triggers the information exchange, e.g., arrest, issuance of a warrant, sentencing, or correctional discharge.
2. Agencies involved in the information exchange, e.g., local police department, prosecuting attorney, pre-trial services agency, trial court, or treatment provider.
3. Information that is exchanged between agencies, which may include documents, data sets or specific data elements, images, video, etc.
4. Exchange conditions, which are factors (such as whether the case is a felony or misdemeanor, the defendant is an adult or a juvenile, in custody or on release, etc.) associated with the case, person, or event that govern the exchange of information and define the processing flow and circumstances surrounding information exchange.

Taken together, these four dimensions constitute business rules. Business rules define the administrative, statutory, organizational, technical and procedural rules that govern information exchange between the agencies identified, given the exchange conditions, for defined events.

Research is currently underway by numerous state and local jurisdictions, and by SEARCH at the national level, to identify and define universal information exchanges throughout the justice enterprise. Findings from this research will contribute to the work of the Integrated Justice Work Group of Legal XML insofar as they identify common information, documents and sources for which XML DTDs can be defined.

For example, the arrest of a suspect may trigger a request from a law enforcement agency for criminal history information from various state repositories. Through the Interstate Identification Index, rap sheet information may be furnished by several states. The DTD for the rap sheet will define a common format for the transmission and display of this information, regardless of its original source.

2. Mission Statement

The mission of the Integrated Justice Work Group of Legal XML is to 1) identify existing data standards that govern information exchange (e.g., the FBI Uniform Rap Sheet); 2) post and publish XML standards for these exchanges if they exist; 3) draft and publish XML standards for these exchanges if they do not exist; 4) consolidate published integrated justice XML standards on the Legal XML web site; 5) serve as liaison with other Legal XML work groups and with other organizations that are developing XML standards; 6) work to resolve conflicts between standards published by various groups; and 7) promote the adoption and implementation of XML standards among justice system organizations. The Integrated Justice Work Group will develop open, non-proprietary XML markup and related electronic interchange standards for documents routinely exchanged between federal, state, and local organizations in the justice environment.

3. Scope

The Integrated Justice Work Group will focus on documents (real documents, as well as virtual electronic documents) that are routinely exchanged between justice agency, court, and non-justice stakeholder (e.g., social service agencies and treatment providers) systems.  XML technology allows certain enhancements to traditional electronic data exchange, such as the inclusion of mug shots and fingerprint images with criminal history data, and work group efforts will attempt to exploit these new capabilities.  Although the initial emphasis will be on criminal justice transactions, all types of justice system activity in the civil and family areas also will be addressed in the future.  Research efforts in the beginning will focus on documents and document types that are universal, as determined by research efforts currently underway. The goal is to identify the data elements within the documents that should be tagged, to define the attributes of those data elements, to develop a set of XML tags to identify the elements, and to articulate the business rules that will determine when exchange transactions will occur.

Examples of documents to be addressed are grouped in the five stages of the process:

1. Investigation, e.g., Arrest Fingerprint Card, Search Warrant;
2. Case Preparation, e.g., Criminal Complaint, Information;
3. Adjudication, e.g., Verdict, Plea Agreement;
4. Sentencing, e.g., Pre-sentence Investigation Report, Victim Impact Statement;
5. Post-sentence, e.g., Progress Report, Revocation of Probation.

3.1 Requirements

The following requirements must be met by the Integrated Justice Work Group:

• All standards should reflect best practices in data exchange processes currently in use in the criminal justice system in a wide variety of states, rather than those developed in a single location.

   

• All standards should build on existing formal and informal data standards that have been developed for interstate use.

   

The following requirements must be met by the Legal XML standards the Integrated Justice Work Group develops:

• All definitions should be consistent with best practices in naming elements and attributes, DTDs, schema, name spaces, and links.

   

• All work products should be consistent with W3C and other industry group and Legal XML work group standards.

   

3.2 Constraints

The Integrated Justice Work Group will be constrained by the following issues:

• Work products should not attempt to define how justice organizations should structure their internal systems, only so far as to allow transmission of information between systems in a standard format;

   

• Work products will be consistent with those of other work groups.

4. Deliverables

The Integrated Justice Work Group's deliverables will include working drafts, proposed standards, recommended standards, unofficial notes, and minutes of meetings. The Integrated Justice Work Group will provide the data models and DTDs for the following documents, whether developed by the work group or by other organizations, in the first round of work:

• First document.

   

• Second document.

   

• Third document, etc.

5. Duration and Milestones

The Integrated Justice Work Group is scheduled indefinitely.

• June 2000 face-to-face meeting to develop charter and begin work on collecting existing work and developing data models and document DTDs;

   

• August 2000 to complete charter, to select documents for first round of work, to review work plan, draft marketing plan, and draft white paper.

Once a schedule is established, the Integrated Justice Work Group can decide to reschedule tasks, but the schedule must fit into the overall time frame given above.

6. Confidentiality

This charter is available to the public. The mailing list and archives of the Integrated Justice Work Group will be available to all Legal XML Participants. All Participants are bound by the Legal XML Operating Rules. If you are an existing Legal XML member, but not a 'Participant,' you can become a participant by updating your membership information. Non-members can join by completing the membership application.

7. Coordination with Other Groups

A number of organizations are currently developing XML standards for integrated justice, including the FBI, NCIC APB, Federal CIO work group, and a number of state integrated criminal justice organizations.  The Legal XML Integrated Justice Work Group will coordinate efforts with these organizations and will not duplicate effort.

The activity of the Integrated Justice Work Group has dependencies on all other Legal XML work groups, particularly the Court Filing Work Group. During Last Call, a chair of the work group will solicit reviews from other Legal XML work groups before a proposed standard will be advanced further.

The activity of the Integrated Justice Work Group has dependencies on other XML standard setting bodies, such as the W3C and IETF. The Integrated Justice Work Group also will review and consider XML tags, content models, and structures used by other professions and industries for potential inclusion in Proposed Standards for Legal XML documents.

8. Communication Mechanisms

8.1 Group Home Page

The Integrated Justice Work Group has its homepage at http://www.legalxml.org/IntegratedJustice/

8.2 Mailing List

The Legal Work Group's mailing list is integratedjustice@legalxml.org.

The Integrated Justice Work Group's mailing list archive is at http://www.legalxml.org/Archives/IntegratedJustice.html. Integrated Justice Work Group members are expected to participate in discussions on the electronic mailing list and in Legal XML polls.

Access to the mailing list archive is restricted by password. If you are a Legal XML 'Participant' your password and instructions for using is can be obtained on the Legal XML password page.

If you are an existing Legal XML member, but not a 'Participant,' you can become a participant by updating your membership information. Non-members can join by completing the membership application.

8.3 Teleconferences

The Integrated Justice Work Group will hold teleconferences as needed to complete its work.

8.4 Face to Face Meetings

The Integrated Justice Work Group held a June meeting in Dallas. The second face-to-face meeting will be held in Atlanta in August. Additional periodic face-to-face meetings will be required and a schedule will be developed for the August meeting. At least one-week prior notice of meetings, a two-day advance agenda, and posting of minutes no longer than 1 week after the meetings are required.

9. Decision Procedure

The Integrated Justice Workgroup itself will govern by consensus as provided in the Legal XML Operating Rules.

10. Participants

Participation in the Workgroup is open to all Legal XML Participants as provided in the Legal XML Operating Rules.

11. Intellectual Property

Intellectual property rights in work product are governed by the Legal XML Intellectual Property Policy.

Legal XML promotes an open working environment. Whenever possible, technical decisions should be made unencumbered by intellectual property right ('IPR') claims. To this end, Legal XML discloses to Membership all IPR claims made by Members. Members may disclose IPR claims at any time, but should do so as soon as possible.

Members disclose IPR claims by sending email to an archived mailing list that is readable by all Members ipr@legalxml.org. Members must disclose all IPR claims to this mailing list but they may also copy other recipients. For instance, Members should copy the Director, the Standards Review Committee, and appropriate Workgroup Chairs.

Member disclosures of IPR claims about a particular subject should include the following language:

To the best of my knowledge, I believe my organization [has or doesn't have] IPR claims regarding [subject].

Members are encouraged to disclose their claims in detail whenever possible.

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