Revelation Software case study - Social Software

The challenge to build a Dynamic XML data exchange.

Youth offenders have been hitting the news headlines of late, not because of what they are doing but because of concerns over how we are dealing with them in the UK.  There has been a sharp rise in youth custodies since Christmas and the trigger is the recently ratified 'ASBO' (Anti-Social Behaviour Order).  A key element of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, the ASBO was designed to put a stop to anti-social behaviour (for example, graffiti and littering, excessive noise late at night, intimidation, drunken behaviour and dealing in drugs) and was first put into use in 1999.  Now more and more 'breach of ASBO' indictments are being directed at youths, while simultaneously the Youth Justice Board's (YJB) budget for custodies is being reduced.

The average ASBO costs more than 5,000 (GBP) to process and three months to obtain.  Over half those sentenced in court for breach of an ASBO receive a custodial sentence.  It is for these reasons that the courts and the Home Office agree that being locked up should be a last resort in the case of an ASBO breach.  Needless to say, tackling anti-social behaviour and indeed all aspects of youth offence are high on the agenda of both national government and local authorities, both of whom have taken a strong line to improve the individual assessment of each case to ensure that the punishment best fits the crime.

In fact, the Home Office has long been committed to improving communications between the various parties involved in criminal justice, running a series of pilot projects over the last two years aimed at improving the process from the initial police notice all the way through to the courts and after care.  Technology has been identified as a key enabler for a smooth running, efficient system.

In a recent breakthrough, a pilot just completed in Warwickshire has given tremendous clarity to the measures that need to be put in place to improve the way youth offenders are dealt with in the UK.

The Challenge: To Achieve the Exchange of Data

The aim of the Warwickshire pilot was to actually show that it would be feasible for different agencies involved in the processing of offenders to have maximum visibility of all of the case facts on demand.  This applies to lawyers, the police, the youth offending teams (YOTs) and the courts, among others.  At the moment each agency maintain their own information in separate case management systems in a proprietary format.  This information is exchanged via post, fax and telephone, resulting in a slow and inefficient system that is prone to inaccuracies and double or triple entry of data.

YOIS Warwickshire Pilot

The Warwickshire pilot represents the culmination of around ten years of work concerning the most practical way forward with data exchange in the Criminal Justice system.  Commissioned by the government's dedicated information technology department for criminal justice, CJIT, its objective was to link three of the organisations typically involved in the criminal justice process, and by doing so to prove that any number of organisations in the chain could share information freely and openly. The three selected participants were the police, the courts and the Youth Offending Team.

To give some further background, existing arrangements consisted of a bi-lateral electronic link between the police and the courts.  However, to link together every organisation in this way using point to point connections would be slow to develop, be very expensive and hard to maintain (diagram 1).  What was required was a completely new information architecture, centring around a hub that would allow any given organisation a way to link in and exchange relevant data from any other organisation on the intranet (diagram 2).

Diagram 1: Spider infrastructure

Youth Offending Team systems specialist Social Software Limited (SSL) was called in to take on the joint work with CJIT of creating the first three-way link. SSLs vast experience of working with Criminal Justice and Youth Offending Team data was key in finalising the design of the message links. Of the country's 155 YOT organisations, SSL was already providing advanced case management solutions to 110 of the units.

Faced with the challenge of continuously developing and enhancing systems to accommodate new thinking and technologies, as well as supporting for example the complex needs of Youth Offending Teams, SSL chose to steer away from popular development database packages on the market on account that they were not sufficiently rapid or flexible, involved inappropriate compromises and unnecessary costs of enhancements in practice. Instead they opted for a solution based upon a MultiValue database environment called OpenInsight, which would essentially allow them to create a flexible, standards based facility ideally suited to meet the need to exchange rich XML data.

"The choice regards design environment was a cornerstone of the project. Looking forward to many tens of years into the future, factoring in scalability and increasingly complex data message requirements, the materials we started with were of paramount importance," stated Derek Girling, Senior Consultant at Social Software Limited.

"When you are dealing with information about people, where there may be differing and valid views about the relevant facts, there are few set responses. The data tends to be text heavy and has few fixed rules. This presents special challenges regarding data structures and the enormous flexibility of the Revelation Software design product, OpenInsight, made it much easier to create a fluid application that would mould to the changing needs of data exchange into the future."

Diagram 2: hub-enabled infrastructure

The YOIS pilot focussed mainly on the request and receipt of Pre-Sentence Reports (PSRs) for youth offenders.  When a youth is found guilty, the magistrate requests a PSR from the YOT.  A PSR request message is sent to the YOT and recorded in the database against the young person's case file and the corresponding YOT worker is alerted by the administrator to provide the PSR.  Once the PSR is completed (following interviews and research), it is stored on the YOT server.  A message is then sent to the hub to record the fact that the document is now available.  When required the hub will request that YOIS generates an outgoing PSR message which gets passed through the hub to the Magistrates Court.

All of these communications take advantage of fully-encrypted electronic messaging.  For example, an encrypted message is sent from the Magistrates Court via the Criminal Justice System Exchange hub.  The YOIS system detects this new message and initiates a process to decrypt and consume the message before transferring data into the YOIS database.

"Communications between organisations that lie within the Criminal Justice System Exchange network need to be secure.  Also the system design is such that a single encrypted electronic message can inform several people in different roles, bringing additional efficiencies," explained Girling. "This has obvious advantages over fax and mail-centric procedures, which can't guarantee that information is picked up and read only by the intended recipients or indeed enable data to be reused e.g. for reporting purposes".

To ensure that all messages on the system could be read by existing, as well as future, computer applications, the YOIS system utilised XML (extensible Markup Language).  XML provides a common language that enables all parties to agree and work on the contents of data message irrespective of their differing application environments.

The Benefits

The pilot has highlighted the numerous benefits of open systems communications for the criminal justice process.  Primarily richer, more accurate, standards based sources of data, which in turn leads to better judgements and improved organisation of services.

Marc Radley commented; "with present procedures it is difficult to build an overall picture in order to fully evaluate any one case.  For example, the police might cite a 'breach of ASBO' charge, recording all of the evidence but not the thinking behind why that charge was made.  A lawyer, however, is more interested in these circumstances.  Single agency systems tend to present information according to the lowest common denominator of data available from a particular agency.  When systems such as YOIS are enhanced and connected to a hub alongside several other systems, richer data becomes available and this promotes wider perspectives about using repositories of information in the future."

The CJIT hub is conceived as an 'hollow' hub, acting in a way similar to a telephone exchange routing requests from any point on a network to the correct locations.  The advantages of this set-up are two-fold.  Firstly, there is a security aspect, in that the hub is impervious to potential attack and acts of terrorism as it doesn't physically hold any information.  Secondly, this model enables the individual authorities themselves to retain ownership of their data, while at the same time-sharing it.  The process can also move forward without incurring the time consuming and impractical task of mapping information and bespoke links for each disparate system.

From a logistical viewpoint, the process of connecting the YOIS system to the hub has demonstrated the approach is agnostic.  The pilot has successfully demonstrated that it is possible to connect an organisation into the system at any stage of system or operational readiness.  This affords a substantial degree of flexibility in rolling out the data exchange system nationwide, allowing this to be carried out incrementally.  Essentially, it means getting data exchange up and running would not depend on all participants being ready to join simultaneously.  In other words, the success of the system is not determined by its weakest link.

"Connecting YOIS to the hub in Warwickshire shows that we can deliver benefits with as few as three system participants, allowing for more and more participants to join as and when they are ready.  This revolutionary concept for data exchange has potential for national, or even international, deployment," stated Radley.

The potential impact of enhancing and connecting YOIS is far reaching. Youth Offending Service data available via 'hubs' promises to deliver more complete information at a much faster pace to professionals involved at key points in the various services.  This is bound to lead to better judgements concerning crime prevention, the response to risk of offending, the process of justice, correction and rehabilitation.  This would mean more effective use of government funds and resources and could also result fewer incidences of repeat offending.  Moreover, the integration of data and enhanced quality of information would assist in policy reform within the entire social welfare and justice system; these changes being backed up by reliable information and facts as opposed to poorly informed opinion or media pressure.

Summary

The Government's programme of reform and change in the criminal justice system includes a vision of a quicker, more integrated and effective process in a bid to provide more effective services and reduce re-offending.  Integrating YOIS into CJSE exchange has been a clear signpost of the way forward, promoting further integration and the relevant agencies working together to help youth offenders, their families and their communities.  The approach also demonstrates a strong lead about putting in place future proofed and cost effective data exchange also applicable to the associated domains of education, social services and health.

The Youth Offending Team is a part of a wider process of managing offenders, offending behaviour and victims involving local communities.  CJIT's pilot project in conjunction with SSL in Warwickshire has proven that exchanging data with systems such as YOIS is part of the process of extending data available to the Criminal Justice System and the continuing success of government reforms aimed at promoting swifter justice and safer communities as well as saving the tax-payer money in the long term.

Above all else, CJIT and SSL have proved a point in fact - that it is indeed possible to open up the secure exchange of data for any number of organisations.

Note:  Since this article was written, Social Software has joined to become part of the CACI group of companies.

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