Case Management Page 1 Page 2

Executive Overview

An offender typically interacts with multiple Department of Corrections (DOC) personnel during the different stages of a crime's adjudication: pretrial interviewers, presentence investigators, counselors, etc. At each stage DOC personnel spend considerable time and resources collecting necessary information. The majority of information garnered is stored locally in paper files or incompatible systems that are inaccessible to other DOC personnel. The expense of repeated data collection may be incurred upward of ten times during the first 60 days of interaction with an offender. Further considering that a typical offender passes through the judicial and corrections system multiple times during their lifetime, the amount of redundancy that can be eliminated by a well-crafted central information system capable of supporting the various corrections services becomes overwhelmingly evident.

DOC typically represents one of the largest discretionary spending line items of a state budget. With offender population as well as cost of administering an offender rising rapidly, DOC needs a system that can help evaluate the effectiveness of various programs and help identify under-utilized resources. At the same time counselors need detailed individual information presented in a context that will aid in their efforts to reduce recidivism. A central information system designed to support such analytics enables the DOC to make more informed decisions and be more responsive to the legislature and other agencies.

Design Process

Case Management is specifically designed for the corrections industry. The design process included interviews with users representing all the different institution, residential, field, and central office services provided by the DOC. The representatives described in detail their operational processes and data collection needs.

The system was carefully crafted to support all workflows, screens and reports before the system was actually developed. Over the years, the system has incorporated feedback from hundreds of users, further improving usability.