The State of Michigan joined the non-profit Open Justice Broker Consortium (OJBC) on January 1, 2015. It is now the fourth member of the consortium, joining the States of Hawaii, Maine, and Vermont.
The non-profit OJBC supports the exchange of critical information within the justice and public safety community. Its members develop information sharing capabilities collaboratively and collectively, then share and reuse them through the Open Justice Broker, a reliable, secure open source technology platform.
Michigan intends to leverage the OJB in two important statewide justice information sharing initiatives.
E-Warrants Exchange Capability
The first effort, led by the Michigan State Police (MSP), involves implementing an electronic warrants exchange capability. The exchanges will involve sharing data from the records management systems of local law enforcement agencies with the state prosecution Adult Case Tracking System (ACT), the state court Justice Information System (JIS), and the state police Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN).
“By joining the OJBC, Michigan will be able to effectively and efficiently develop a system that enables stakeholders to electronically request, authorize, issue, and serve an arrest warrant. It will also provide the ability to submit a federated query against various warrant repositories. The end goal is to automate and streamline warrant processes for law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and court personnel across the state.
The value to Michigan of joining the OJBC is that we do not need to build our solution from scratch. It allows us to control costs by leveraging open source software and reusing technologies that other consortium members have developed and successfully deployed.”
—Ms. Katie Bower, Assistant Director, Criminal Justice Information Center, Michigan State Police
Juvenile Data Query Capability
A second capability leveraging the OJB is the Juvenile Justice Vision 20/20 initiative, a collaborative organization of local- and state-level juvenile justice stakeholders seeking to enhance outcomes for youth, families, and communities through improvements in the juvenile justice system in Michigan. The organization includes representatives of local juvenile courts, State Court Administrative Office, Department of Human Services, Department of Technology, Management and Budget, Grand Valley State University, private agencies and residential treatment providers, Michigan State Police, and many other organizations.
This effort involves implementing a secure, web-based federated query across county court systems so juvenile history details can be viewed across disparate systems. Ms. Sandi Metcalf, President of Juvenile Justice 20/20 and Director of Juvenile Services for the 20th Circuit Court, said the query will provide controlled access to details about offenses, referrals, intakes, hearing, case plans and placements. The project is in a pilot phase and involves the counties of Ottawa, Kent, Berrien, Ionia, and Kalamazoo. Additional counties will join the federated query following the pilot.
“We are very excited to welcome Michigan into the OJBC,” said OJBC Executive Director Scott Came. “Each new Member demonstrates further reuse of what the other Members have already built, while also expanding the capabilities of the platform in new directions. It is particularly exciting that Michigan will add warrant automation and secure querying of juvenile court information to the platform, given the importance of those information exchanges to the justice system.”
Since its founding in 2011, the OJBC has implemented over five dozen justice exchanges across a wide range of agencies and technology systems. The OJBC’s information sharing exchanges are implemented in conformance with national and industry standards, including the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) and the Global Justice Information Sharing Toolkit. The platform’s capabilities include secure federated query, single sign-on and federated identity management, adapters for many common records- and case-management systems, automated subscription-notification, and automation of core justice transactions like incident reporting.
The OJBC welcomes inquiries from those interested in membership. For more information about the organization and the benefits and obligations of membership, contact OJBC staff at info@ojbc.org.