Iowa CJIS Project Wins IJIS Institute Innovation Award

Aug. 19, 2010 - PRLog -- The IJIS Institute, a nonprofit organization that focuses on mission-critical information sharing for justice, public safety, and homeland security, along with Emergency Management Magazine, announce the Iowa Criminal Justice Information System Project as the winner of the 2010 Innovation Award.

The winning industry solution provider, URL Integration, the project’s system integrator, and the practitioner agency, the Iowa Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning, received the award from Paul Wormeli, executive director of the IJIS Institute, and Marty Pastula, vice president of the Emergency Management Group, on August 3, 2010, in Ft. Myers, Florida, during the National Forum for Criminal Justice and Public Safety.

The Iowa Criminal Justice Information System Project is a statewide information sharing initiative to connect existing criminal justice information systems across Iowa. This ongoing project, which first went live in February 2008, currently benefits 84 Iowa criminal justice agencies using 17 different Justice Reference Architecture- (JRA) compliant information exchanges using the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) and the Global Justice Exchange Data Model (GJXDM) as well as national standards for encryption/decryption, validation, routing, and error handling.

Before this project went into production, protective orders and arrest warrants took at least two days to enter manually into the system. After this project was implemented, this same information is now available immediately to the officer on the street, thus enhancing public safety.

Paul Wormeli, executive director of the IJIS Institute noted, “This project clearly demonstrates that a collaborative effort among all levels of government can succeed, and that barriers that once stood in the way of success, can in fact be overcome when all parties work with a common desire to achieve the collective good.”

Two projects received Honorable Mentions during the award ceremony: the Mission-Based Analysis of SAR Pilot - Analytical Tool Kit (ATK) developed by Eastport Analytics for the Federal Air Marshals’ Service, and the JUSTIS Project developed by Enlightened, Inc. and District of Columbia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council.

The annual award recognizes innovation that has contributed significantly to the advancement of integration and interoperability in a justice, public safety, or homeland security project. The Innovation Award focuses on team achievement, recognizing both the industry solution provider and the practitioner agency implementing the technology

For more information about the IJIS Institute Innovation Award please visit http://www.ijis.org/_about/awards.html#innovation.

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The IJIS Institute is a nonprofit organization that serves as the voice of industry, uniting the private and public sectors to improve mission-critical information sharing for those who protect and serve our communities. Find out more at www.ijis.org.