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September/October 1998
Washington State Justice Information Network
The Washington state court system has moved into the world of Internet Protocol (IP) networking. The state's office of the administrator for the courts (OAC) is creating a network for the transmission of data between state criminal justice agencies, courts, law enforcement and prosecutors in the state's 39 counties. This project moves the courts from dedicated connections with the shared database in Olympia to internetworking with county and city local and wide area networks that serve the courts and other criminal justice agencies. End users can now access both state and local services and databases from their workstations.
The initial requirement was to enable the use of new versions of the Judicial Information System (JIS), a mission-critical case management application used by virtually all of the courts in the state. The plan was to replace leased lines and dial-up connections used by the courts and criminal justice agencies with IP connections.
The court project coincided with a state initiative to create a Justice Information Network (JIN) that would connect both state and local criminal justice agencies. The OAC designed the network so that it could be used initially by the courts, and by county and city prosecutors and local law enforcement agencies to access the JIS now and state criminal history databases in the future. The objectives were to (1) minimize current and future operating costs for courts, prosecutors, and law enforcement agencies; (2) improve access for courts and their business partners; and (3) enable information exchange between courts, prosecutors, and law enforcement agencies.
This JIN builds on the state's InterGovernmental Network (IGN), an IP network connecting each county with the state Department of Information Services' backbone in Olympia. The JIN uses both state and local networks that are shared with other agencies. Consequently, network security and performance demand special attention. Local network connections must meet security requirements to control and identify criminal justice traffic. With security in place, criminal justice users on local jurisdiction networks can connect to the state databases in Olympia. To maintain performance, the OAC can add bandwidth incrementally to the connection with each jurisdiction.
Internetworking has produced a new era of cooperation between the state criminal justice agencies and the local jurisdictions. Security, performance, and network management have become the joint responsibility of the OAC, the courts, the state Department of Information Services, and local government information technology departments. The OAC has established a network operations center. The OAC and local governments have negotiated individual internetwork designs wherever a local network is used to reach court, law enforcement, and prosecutor users of the JIS. Currently, 33 of Washington's 39 counties have implemented local networks that have the potential to connect to the JIN. The OAC has established connectivity through local networks to courts in 28 of those counties as well as several cities. If a local court does not have connectivity to a local jurisdiction network or the IGN, the OAC has provided a frame relay circuit.
With network installation now complete for the court system, the JIS has the infrastructure that will support a statewide court intranet. The OAC will use the intranet to deliver Web-based applications and other services to the trial courts. The first major application--the Court Automated Proceedings System--which will enhance scheduling, calendaring, recording events in hearings, and producing notices, will begin a phased implementation in mid-1999. The development of Web-based applications for juvenile and appellate courts has begun. In addition, the intranet will provide judges, managers, and court staff with systems documentation, manuals such as bench books, reports published by the OAC, and training on the JIS applications.
*Brian Backus is the deputy director for operations and support in the information systems division at the office of the administrator for the courts in Olympia, Washington. He can be reached at (360) 705-5320 or by e-mail at brian.backus@courts.wa.gov.
