Running head: Harris County: Going Paperless

Harris County: Going Paperless

Managerial Applications of Information Technology
OVERVIEW OF THE ORGANIZATION
The Harris County Juvenile Probation Department is committed to the protection of the public, utilizing intervention strategies that are community-based, family-oriented and least restrictive while emphasizing responsibility and accountability of both parent and child. As part of our core values we value the belief that everyone is to be treated with dignity and respect. We believe that each person has innate worth, dignity and capacity for positive change. We value services that are ethical, effective and culturally competent. We hold high and promote a positive image of the department, the employees and our role within the community.

We take pride in an environment that promotes initiative, productivity, teamwork and professional growth. We uphold to an atmosphere which stresses tolerance and is free of discrimination. We strive in developing collaborative efforts with judicial, legislative and community partners. The Harris County Juvenile Probation Department operates a Leadership Academy, a Detention Center, a secure residential treatment center and a non-secure residential treatment center. ( hcjpd. Org, 2009).

The Texas Family Code, Chapter 58 requires that agencies in Texas report juvenile criminal history to the Department of Public Safety in Austin beginning January 1, 1996. The Harris County Juvenile Probation Department is committed to the protection of the public, utilizing intervention strategies that are community-based, family-oriented and least restrictive while emphasizing responsibility and accountability of both parent and child. The department handles a lot of paper work regarding information, court actions and every detail that aids the right handling of juvenile offenders. But the case of data redundancy and repetition has reduced our efficiency as a unit.

CURRENT BUSINESS ISSUE
The current business issue facing the juvenile probation department of the Harris County is the inability of the department to secure, maintain and centralize information regarding child offenders. Since 1993 nearly 1.5 million delinquency cases were handled by juvenile courts and virtually every one of those cases had contact with a probation officer at some point. Probation departments screened most of those cases to determine how they should be processed, made detention decisions on some of them, prepared investigation reports on most of them, provided supervision to over a half million of them, and delivered aftercare services to many of the juveniles released from institutions (Juvenile Justice Bulletin, 1996). But the inability of the department to deal with data inconsistency, redundancy and duplicate files has led to inefficiency in handling these cases of delinquency.

The official duties of juvenile probation professionals vary from State to State and can even differ between jurisdictions within a single State. Nonetheless, a basic set of juvenile probation functions includes: intake screening of cases referred to juvenile and family courts, predisposition or presentence investigation of juveniles, and court-ordered supervision of juvenile offenders. Not all probation departments execute all three of these functions independently. For example, in some jurisdictions the prosecutor shares the intake responsibility with the probation officer, and in other jurisdictions the prosecutor has sole responsibility for the intake process. Similarly, probation responsibilities are not always limited to intake, investigation, and supervision. Some departments also provide aftercare for youth released from institutions; others may administer detention or manage local residential facilities or special programs.

In recent times, the department has resorted to giving families, neighbors and support groups the responsibility to provide after care to offenders as against the specialized program put in place to handle this. This in part is due to lack of funds and few employees, but it is more inclined to the bulk amount of funds that go into using the traditional means of record keeping. “Paper and file recording” This as a system does not do much for record keeping sakes and efficiency.

To this extent a proposal is being put forward to introduce a single point entry system which will offer probation officers a one-stop access to information, provide support and linkages related to the cases handled. The system will be linked to a data base management system, a software that has the ability to centralize every data regarding an offender, manage the data efficiently, and provide access to the stored program by easy to manage application programs (Laudon C, Laudon J, 2010).

This single point entry system will be called the JOT an acronym for Juvenile Offender Tracking System. This system follows the decree of the Texas Family Code, Chapter 58 which requires that agencies in Texas report juvenile criminal history to the Department of Public Safety in Austin beginning January 1, 1996. The JOT will help in automating the Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) reports required by DPS. JOT will be built on a database as earlier mentioned, giving information of officers in charge, juvenile charges, witness and complainant information.

It will further avail the department the ability to share information and reduce the incidence of repetitive data entry. It is in our best interest therefore, to shift resources and install this computer program that will help us track juvenile offenders, evaluate the youths in the court system, and hopefully remedy the problem of repeat offenders.

To the best of our knowledge, it is a fact that nearly three-quarters of the minors referred to probation for criminal activity did not have a new probation referral. Furthermore, reports indicates that 21 percent of youth offenders committed one or two more offenses, while 8 percent committed three or more additional offenses (govpro.com, 2010). This decree and studies has initiated the idea of the single-point-of-entry system that will further expedite and automate the process of initiating records.

GOING PAPERLESS
Based on this introduction, my team has decided to present to this honorable board the single point entry system technology backed with the theme “going paperless”. The software would be formatted in the manner below, having all the information regarding the offender without the thought of putting pen on paper. Automatically the information will be stored in a database and will constantly be updated.

Fig 1: Offender Tracking Software

Advantages of the Juvenile Offender Tracking System
Compared with the keeping the records on paper, there are several advantages of JOTS among other techniques. Unlike the records on paper, the JOTS is a database, which means that it is less prone to losing data, saves office space, and immediate accessibility of the records on file since the program would “[store] information that is easily queried and retrieved” (“Juvenile Data,” n.d.). Through this device’s feature, one can easily monitor juvenile offenders and consequently report them if they are in the wanted list. This would also provide the citizens of Harris County a warning and further awareness of the community’s current criminal justice system.

Harris County is not solitary in using the technology. Other criminal justice systems in other states are already using the technology of the same kind. In Illinois Department of Corrections Offender, the juvenile offender tracking system is also adopted with other “6000 terminals and PC workstations with access to the system” (Illinois Integrated, 2009). Harris County is working toward a single-point-of-entry system that will further expedite and automate the process of initiating records.

Staff of the Harris County Juvenile Department utilizes the Juvenile Offense Tracking System to track juveniles, their offenses, pre- and post-adjudication services and activities, case docketing and dispositions. The TSD unit supports agency objectives through the development and effective use of technology resources. Its technicians maintain the agency’s computer network and provide user support services such as wide area network management, computer hardware and software maintenance/support. In addition, the TSD unit’s researchers provide data and reports that support agency research, evaluations, planning and resource management.

The agency’s wide area network consists of the Juvenile Justice Center and 16 remote sites located throughout the 18 county. Network users have access to facilities, desktop applications, the Internet and e-fax as well as specialized applications developed by staff programmers. The programmers engage in a diverse set of activities that include application development and maintenance, research, planning and user training. Research staff addresses data requests from various internal and external consumers including federal, state and local agencies, universities, funding sources and the media. Senior technology staff continues to participate in the development of JOT.

RECOMMENDATIONS AND COST
Our vision statement which is “to promote public safety, encourage youth accountability, as well as offering opportunities for rehabilitation to youth, through the development and sustainability of a statewide juvenile justice information system” has proved to us that now more than ever is the time to introduce this technology to the system. The system would help us develop a knowledge base about outcomes relevant to functions and programs of the juvenile justice system and evaluate the benefit of programs aimed at reducing juvenile crime in the most cost effective way. The system would work as a data base management system would.

The Database Management System (DBMS) is defined as a special software to create and maintain a database and enable individual business application to exact the data they need without having to create the data they need without having to create separate files or data definitions in their computer programs. (Laudon & Laudon, 2010) It allows organizations to place control of database development in the hands of database administrators (DBA’s) and other specialists.

A DBMS is a system that helps in the use of integrated collection of data records and files known as databases. The system allows different user application programs to easily access the same database. In large systems, a DBMS allows users and other software to store and retrieve data in a structured way. DBMS’s may use any of a variety of database models, such as the network model or relational model. JOT is one of several integrated computer systems used by many different departments and agencies to locate, track, identify, charge, book, prosecute and supervise criminal offenders, file and process civil cases, and automate jury management and payroll.

The recognition of JOT marked the beginning of the system as we know it today, and it also marked the culmination of several years work already spent planning and designing JOT and its predecessor systems. The result is the largest fully integrated automated county level justice system in the country and the resulting long term savings of tax dollars required to support the justice process. JOT is the product of a continuing cooperative effort among Harris County justice agencies and elected officials.

The automated systems are designed to provide one-time entry of data and efficient access to justice information to all agencies that require it through shared files and system resources, while restricting access to certain criminal history and other sensitive information according to local, state and federal regulations, laws and guidelines. Projects and priorities are established by the participating user agencies.

The system is used daily by personnel in over 300 government agencies including municipal, county, state, and federal agencies. The system is also used by over 1500 private sector firms and companies through the Harris County District Clerk's Office Subscriber Access program. In terms of cost, the total expenditure incurred by the department to purchase inventories such as pens, files and paper is about $300 a week.

The cost of loosing information to termites or natural disasters cannot be quantified. Also the cost in training employees to build competencies in managing and utilizing the current filling system with its attendant security implication is not also captured. But the cost of installing JOT software is about $49.95 a figure based on proposals received so far. While the installation of the database with query ability and an Online Analytical processor as well as the cost of training will cost us about $50,000-53,000. Over the long term, it will save the department a lot more and improve efficiencies exponentially.

Conclusion
The JOTS is a useful tool in eliminating the presence of juvenile delinquency-related crimes. Increased accessibility and convenience would detect offenders and warn other citizens about them. Although this is a good step of the government, nothing beats prevention of the problem. The JOTS can improve the county’s standing with regard to criminality, but it does not mean that it disregards the role of the parents as primary regulators of their children’s behavior.

REFERENCES 1. Juvenile Probation: The Workhorse of the Juvenile Justice System, Juvenile Justice Bulletin, March 1996. 2. K. C. Laudon, J. P. Laudon (2010) Management Information Systems, Managing The Digital Firm, chapter 6, pp. 240 3. Govpro.com (2010) Tracking Repeat Offenders, Government Procurement.