Criminal Justice Operational Database Management System

About the Program

Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

In response to the needs of the County’s major Criminal Justice partners and the opportunities presented by modern technologies, the Alameda County Information Technology Department (ITD) replaced its centralized mainframe based Criminal Justice system with a distributed event-based system centered on a web based user interface, a master database and an enterprise service bus (ESB). The five criminal justice partners of Alameda County (the Sheriff, the Superior Court, the District Attorney, the Public Defender and the Probation Department) each have systems of their own that needed to be integrated into a centralized, master, integrated operational view. The introduction of a master database satisfies the key partner requirement of a common criminal justice data source. While each partner maintains specialized data in their separate case management systems (CMS) the key operational data for every criminal justice case is stored in this common repository. Access to the master data is provided by a secure web-based application that is available not only to partners’ staff but to dozens of Federal, State of California and local agencies. ITD’s implementation of an event-driven enterprise service bus supports the accuracy of the master database and the timeliness of criminal justice data transmissions between partners. As transactions post to each partner's CMS, the ESB accepts and passes encrypted messages that updates the master database and notifies interested partners of the event. Connected to the County’s network, the ESB’s ‘master’ router function guarantees the reliable and secure delivery of criminal justice data.