A TTA request by West Virginia Public Defender Services (hereafter "PDS") to the Bureau of Justice Assistance (as supported by the Center for Court Innovation), focused on information-gathering related to eventual development of a comprehensive criminal justice database, concludes in September 2021. Continuing operations are necessary to further the work of the proposed, collaborative criminal justice database project in West Virginia. Specifically, TTA is the necessary continuing operation that allows West Virginia (as steered by PDS) to formalize the goals and expectations of this project by focusing on specific deliverables (a Concept of Operations document) to ensure all stakeholders have a common, shared understanding of the goals, expectations, inputs, outputs, and outcomes that will eventually be part of the criminal justice database. A Concept of Operations document encompassing a shared vision among stakeholders is the next necessary step to be developed and supported by TTA. With a Concept of Operations document in place, functionality, organization, and funding of the project can then be determined.
West Virginia has intentionally focused on a Concept of Operations document as the next step of the project to ensure successful agreements and future implementation of the criminal justice database. TTA will ideally consist of facilitated meetings with members of West Virginia's stakeholder team that represent government, academia, law enforcement, the Supreme Court of Appeals, the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the legislature, advocates, and retired judges. TTA will provide for designated representatives (ideally from SEARCH) to meet with stakeholders to explain and gain comprehension for the vision, scope, and approach to a comprehensive criminal justice database across West Virginia and discuss how the project will eventually be organized, governed, and funded. TTA-supported development of a Concept of Operations document is a critical step in allowing West Virginia to develop, operate, and maintain a comprehensive criminal justice database that is automated and eliminates our use of mail and facsimile for court and public safety records.
West Virginia presently lacks a comprehensive criminal justice database. Statistics are not readily available to track the path of a criminal defendant from the moment of arrest to arraignment and indictment, through sentencing and disposition, including completion of sentence. Data related to these stages of the criminal justice process is maintained separately in silos by agencies serving different functions for the state. This decentralized system poses a threat to public safety and prevents and precludes access to meaningful criminal justice data. Furthermore, the present assemblage of data sharing systems is duplicative, and thus inefficient. Staff time is wasted when the same information must be inputted (often manually) into several different systems for law enforcement, courts, and corrections, among others.
The lack of a centralized database prevents law enforcement at every level—from prosecutors to arresting officers—from accessing the information they need to keep the public safe. In North Carolina, a similar lack of real-time information resulted in a preventable murder in 2008. This incident catalyzed the creation of CJLEADS, a powerful system that provides a comprehensive view of an offender’s criminal information in a single, web-based application. Similar gaps in data have been identified by law enforcement in West Virginia and must be addressed. West Virginia is one of only six American states and territories that still utilize paper court disposition reports. Many law enforcement agencies still submit (via mail and facsimile) numerous paper documents to the courts. The timeliness of data entry by the courts into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) determines whether a law enforcement officer in the field will see that information when needed. Some officers can call the courts, but if the court is closed, they rely on potentially out of date information. In the absence of a centralized database, reports, records, and files must physically be retrieved if records are not automated or if case information from another county is needed. This also impacts criminal defendants who may be detained and held on outdated charges that have been resolved, albeit manually in another county.
The disconnected nature of criminal justice data in West Virginia additionally means that criminal justice stakeholders do not have data with which to make data-driven decisions. This lack of data extends to judges, the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR) and other state agencies, legislators, and academics. For example, bond amounts and sentencing dispositions for the same criminal charge vary across the 55 counties in the state; each is at the discretion of the judge or magistrate. Some constituents have questions about disparities in bond amounts and sentencing dispositions, and there is no database for judges, magistrates, prosecutors, or defense attorneys to review for comparison or analysis. When DCR implements resource-intensive programs intended to support individuals and decrease recidivism, the agency lacks complete statistics about whether the program is effective. Similarly, legislators tasked with drafting criminal justice policy are met with a paucity of data related to the justice system. While academics in other states are able to conduct studies to examine issues such as the opioid epidemic and its effects on crime rates, such studies are not viable in West Virginia because of the lack of data. A comprehensive criminal justice database could address these deficits, support information sharing, and increase timely and efficient public safety measures.
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West Virginia project stakeholders recognize the inadequacies of the current system of data sharing as well as the benefits of an integrated system. However, it has also become clear that the vision, scope, and approach to the project of building a replacement system require further refinement. The process of meeting with stakeholders to create a Concept of Operations would ensure that stakeholders are confident that their goals regarding the database are considered and incorporated. Once the document is completed, it would serve as a roadmap for the project, describing characteristics of the proposed system and its relationship to existing systems.
TTA would also formally gather commitment from key stakeholders to support the ultimate deliverable—a data warehouse or data sharing environment. Many stakeholders have questions regarding where the data would be stored, who will have access to what data, and how the data will be used. The Concept of Operations document will prime the next step towards creation of a comprehensive database: eventual development of governance documents and agreements to define who is a party to governance of the data sharing environment and the scope of their authority. Formalized documents created through these next steps would ensure the project is clearly shaped by stakeholders’ goals and state legal requirements moving forward. Ultimately, this TTA would allow for tangible progress toward the creation of an integrated database with one-time entry and automated sharing of standardized data. The database would promote public safety, increase efficiency in government offices, and provide powerful data with which to inform decision making from the courts to the legislature.
Please submit a signed letter of support from your agency’s executive or other senior staff member. The letter can be emailed to or uploaded with this request. The letter should be submitted on official letterhead and include the following information:
- General information regarding the request for TTA services, i.e., the who, what, where, when, and why.
- The organizational and/or community needs specific to the request for TTA services.
- The benefits or anticipated outcomes from the receipt of TTA services.
By submitting this application to BJA NTTAC, I understand that upon approval of this application for TTA, the requestor agrees to keep BJA NTTAC informed of any circumstances that may impact the delivery of the TTA, including changes in the date of the event, event cancellation, or difficulties communicating with the assigned TTA provider.
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Since Public Defender Services received the 2019 TTA award to explore the creation of a criminal justice database, considerable progress has been made toward gathering essential information and buy-in. Along with guidance from the Center for Court Innovation (CCI) TTA team, this undertaking has involved a West Virginia stakeholder team composed of staff members from the Supreme Court of Appeals, State Police, Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Statistical Analysis Center, Legislature, Public Defender Services, and a retired judge, academics, and advocates.
In December 2019, the CCI TTA team conducted on-site interviews with stakeholders, who identified present gaps in data sharing and benefits to increased data sharing (compiled in a Site Visit Summary Report). Between August 2020 and December 2020, the CCI TTA team convened learning sessions for the stakeholder team to hear from subject matter experts about the development and use of statewide integrated data systems. These sessions included presentations by Mark Perbix, director of Information Sharing Programs for SEARCH, Joseph Centurione, administrator at Pennsylvania's JNET, and Carol Burroughs, project manager at North Carolina's CJLEADS. In November 2020, the CCI TTA team released a Data Inventory Report, directly informed by interviews with representatives from criminal justice agencies in West Virginia. Thus far, six full stakeholder meetings have been convened. The CCI TTA team, in collaboration with Public Defender Services, additionally created West Virginia criminal justice data sharing maps: visual representations of (1) an example of a statewide, integrated data sharing system, and (2) how criminal justice data is currently shared between agencies in West Virginia. Before concluding their work with Public Defender Services, the CCI TTA team will provide a strategic plan to PDS, ensuring a seamless transition. The latter can be used to support and inform the development of a Concept of Operations document.
Most recently, support for the further development of an integrated database has been secured from both the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and Governor Jim Justice’s administration. This support, along with the support of the robust stakeholder team, suggests that BJA NTTAC TTA would be met with the requisite engagement of state leadership and resources.