Criminal database timed out

The county's 23-year-old Criminal Justice Information System needs an upgrade to bring it into the Internet age.

By JAMAL THALJI
Published July 2, 2007

Dinosaurs do, in fact, walk the earth.

Want proof? Access the Criminal Justice Information System - or CJIS, the ancient criminal courts database of Pasco County.

Every facet of the criminal justice system is in CJIS: case numbers, hearings, sentences, even what time to be in court. It's information judges, lawyers, trial clerks, police officers and the public need to access every day. There isn't a criminal justice system without it.

It's also stored on a 23-year-old mainframe computer that can't be accessed online - or even using a mouse.

It's light type on a dark screen. You have to follow the cursor, MS-DOS style. It takes keyboard commands only, obscure ones like "G" (for a list of cases) and "K" (for the case docket).

Then hit the numeric Enter key on the far right - the regular Enter key everybody else uses won't work.

Soon, that whole system will go the way of the dinosaurs, too.

"Sometimes you're the victim of your own success, " said court management consultant Larry Webster. "Something works fairly well and you kind of ride your horse too long until the horse is ready to fall flat over.

"That's kind of where they're at."

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Pasco County is finally ready for a new horse - or rather, a new criminal justice computer system.

It's too early in the process for Pasco officials to even estimate how long it will take or how much it will cost. It will be paid for by state-mandated recording fees that fund criminal justice computer systems.

Look to Pinellas County to see how difficult this undertaking can be. Officials there are replacing the decades-old RUMBA mainframe (already online, despite its age) with the new CJIS II.

It will take years and millions of dollars to do so and auditors have criticized the project for wasting both.

Pasco's chief jurist, Circuit Judge W. Lowell Bray Jr., said the county hopes it doesn't have to spend that kind of time or money.

"We're looking for something cheaper, " he said, "and quicker."

But still up-to-date.

"It's an old mainframe, it's an old language, it's an old support system, " said Pasco director of court services Rosalyn Fenton of the Clerk of the Court's Office. "We're looking at a lot of functionality that this system cannot support."

Like Internet access and electronic document filing - stuff other counties have had for years.

- - -

Webster is half of a consulting duo here to get the ball rolling. They visited the Dade City and New Port Richey courthouses to study, basically, everything about CJIS - how it's used and who uses it.

The consultants will present their recommendations July 31 to the CJIS board, made up of the criminal justice system's main players: judges, prosecutors, public defenders, state agencies and law enforcement.

First and foremost, the consultants will recommend a system that will finally put criminal records online. Pasco is the only Tampa Bay area county without such a capability.

The new system should be Web-based, with modern servers running current software using powerful computer chips and massive hard drives. And it will be adaptable to new record-keeping technology.

In the future, that could mean viewing scanned images of court documents. In the distant future, it could even mean watching court hearings online.

"There's a lot of new stuff that's coming with this Web technology, " Webster said, "and we'll be recommending that they pursue all of it."

- - -

So what's wrong with CJIS?

It takes keystroke after keystroke to do anything. You use Tab and arrow keys a lot. You can use a mouse, but don't bother clicking - all it does is put the cursor on a box so you can enter keyboard commands.

Real-time data entry is rarely done. Instead, trial clerks take handwritten notes of what happened in court; other clerks later use those notes to update the case in the computer system.

"It's taking them two or three times as long to do the work of the court as opposed to doing it right on the spot, " Webster said, "and every time you do that, you open yourself up to errors."

Then there are the redundancies. Victim information has to be entered three separate times: first when a defendant is booked into jail, then when prosecutors get the case, and again by juvenile or probation officers.

And there's the issue of public access. Right now one has to drive to a courthouse or records center in Dade City or New Port Richey to look up or file criminal court records. Neither is an easy commute from central Pasco.

Online access is more efficient for the public, Webster said. They'll spend less time waiting in line, and deputy clerks will spend less time with problems that could be solved online. And a more efficient system makes the public servants who use it on a daily basis that much more efficient.

"You can do in seconds what might take minutes in the mainframe world, " Webster said.

Pasco is starting the process at the right time, the consultant said. But then, the county has no choice.

"They're at the trailing edge; they can't go a whole a lot longer doing what they're doing, " Webster said. "A year or two, max."

[Last modified July 1, 2007, 22:20:23]