April 25, 2007
New law enforcement software in use in King County named finalist for 2007 intergovernmental solutions awards
Groundbreaking law enforcement software has earned King and Yakima counties top honors from the American Council for Technology (ACT), a national committee of government and industry IT professionals. The software is a finalist for the 2007 ACT Intergovernmental Solutions Awards. It allows police officers to use a single program to search local and state criminal and court information on inmates.
The Washington State Department of Information Services (DIS) designed the computer application known as “Possible Criminal History and Case and Criminal History” (PCH/CACH). King County incorporated the software its jail inmate lookup service (JILS) as a pilot program in March.
The application beat out more than 100 other nominees to reach the final round of consideration for the awards, which seek out outstanding progress being made at all levels of government through the innovative use of technology to enable efficient and effective business processes.
Winners from federal, state and local governments will be selected and announced at an awards presentation on Monday, June 4th at the 27th Annual Management of Change Conference in Richmond, Virginia.
In King County, the PCH/CACH software has improved law enforcement efficiency by allowing an officer to use a single search program to find local and state criminal history and court history information on offenders, instead of multiple searches on different databases.
"PCH/CACH reduces the amount of time our law enforcement personnel must spend gathering background information on individuals," said King County Executive Ron Sims. "With one transaction, officers get more complete information from statewide sources. That saves time, money, and improves our efforts to keep the public safe across Washington."
“Congratulations to the Washington Department of Information Services for their leadership in developing this software. Anything that helps our law enforcement professionals to quickly acquire more accurate and complete information is good for all the citizens of Washington,” said Governor Chris Gregoire.
PCH/CACH provides Washington’s law enforcement professionals with quick and seamless access to an individual’s criminal and court case history. With PCH/CACH, information from multiple criminal justice organizations can be received through a single search -- simplifying the research responsibilities of law enforcement professionals like police officers and prosecuting attorneys.
PCH/CACH will be available to other local agencies in July, 2007 and will continue to expand over the next biennium. Recognizing that budgetary constraints of local law enforcement agencies often do not include technological improvements, the PCH/CACH service will be provided at no cost to those agencies.
Prior to the development of PCH/CACH, law enforcement personnel were required to search through multiple sources to obtain comprehensive information about individuals. This information would often arrive in a variety of formats needing intensive translation and consolidation by individual law enforcement agencies.
PCH/CACH was selected as an awards finalist by a committee of government and industry IT professionals. To be chosen as a finalist, the technology had to demonstrate technology leadership, intergovernmental collaboration, the ability to transform business processes with positive impacts and results, and the ability to be replicable by other organizations -- widespread national or regional application -- with minimum difficulty.
Winners will be selected and announced in June.