LEIS
02.03.2013
Budget, congress, criminal justice, Data, data sharing, Information sharing, justice, law enforcement, Law enforcement information sharing, leadership, LEIS, N-DEx, NIEM
If you want law enforcement agencies to share information, go to the source and help the Chiefs and Sheriffs to push their data in the FBI’s National Data Exchange N-DEx. Trying to impose information sharing with unfunded standards mandates will not work.
As someone who has been in the standards business since 1995, history has proven to me that:
- The business need must drive standards, standards can NEVER drive the business; and
- Trying to SELL the business on standards is a losing strategy.
Hi Congressman Reichert,
You won’t remember me, but a long time ago we were in meetings together in Seattle with the likes of John McKay, Dave Brandt, Scott Jacobs, Dale Watson, and others working on building the Law Enforcement Information Exchange (LInX); I was the technical guy on the project, working with Chief Pat Lee and our very dear lost friend Julie Fisher (may she rest-in-peace, I sure miss her).
A hell of a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then–it’s been nearly TWELVE YEARS. If we look back over this time, we have had so many bills, laws, strategies, policies, papers, speeches, conferences, proclamations, and other assorted attempts to prod law enforcement data loose from the nearly 18,000 agencies across our country. While we are far better off than we were back then, I think we can agree that we still have a long way to go.
Where we differ, I’m afraid, is in the approach to get there – a few days ago, you proposed legislation, the Department of Justice Global Advisory Committee Authorization Act of 2013, as a means to improve information sharing among law enforcement agencies – do we really believe another “stick” will work to get agencies to share information? Do we really believe it’s a technology or data standards problem that’s preventing law enforcement data from being shared? As a technologist for 34 years, and someone who has been involved in law enforcement information sharing since the Gateway Project in St. Louis, MO in 1999, I can tell you it is neither.
While I applaud the work of the GAC, and I have many colleagues who participate in its work, I’m afraid having more meetings about information sharing, developing more standards, approving more legislation, and printing more paper will NOT help to reach the level of information sharing we all want.
Instead, I want to propose to you a solution aimed at capturing the commitment of the men and women who can actually make law enforcement information sharing happen, and virtually overnight (metaphorically speaking) – namely, the great men and women who lead our police and sheriffs departments across America.
Now to be fair, many of these agencies are already contributing their records to a system I am sure you are familiar with called the National Data Exchange (N-DEx). Built by the FBI CJIS Division, this system has matured into a pretty respectable platform for not only sharing law enforcement information, but also for helping cops and analysts to do their respective investigative and analytic work.
Now, in case you are wondering, I do not own stock in any of the companies that built N-DEx, nor has the FBI signed me up as a paid informant to market N-DEx. I write to you on my own volition as a result of my nearly six years of volunteer work as a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Criminal Justice Information Systems (CJIS) Committee.
About two years ago I volunteered to lead a small sub-group of the committee who have either built, led, or managed municipal, state, federal, or regional information sharing systems. Our charge was (and still is) to help CJIS take a look under the hood of N-DEx to see what’s in there (data wise) and to help figure out what needs to be done to make it a more effective tool to help cops across America catch more criminals, and maybe, just maybe, even prevent criminals from acting in the first place.
While our work is far from done, I can tell you that one thing we need is more data – as you well know, be it N-DEx, LInX, RAIN, or any other information sharing system, it is only as good as the data that’s put into it.
Believe it or not we already have the data standards in-place to get the data into N-DEx. CJIS has developed two Information Exchange Packet Descriptions (IEPDs) that tells agencies exactly what to do and how to format and package up their data so it can get to N-DEx. Additionally, CJIS has an extensive team ready to assist and my colleagues over at the IJIS Institute hold training sessions sponsored by BJA, to help agencies along the process (NIEM training).
These two IEPDs can help law enforcement agencies today to share the following law enforcement records:
- Service Call
- Incident
- Arrest
- Missing Person
- Warrant Investigation
- Booking
- Holding
- Incarceration
- Pre-Trial Investigation
- Pre-Sent Investigation
- Supervised Release
So what’s the hold up? Speaking only for myself, and I will be very straight with you, I believe the root cause for not getting more law enforcement data into N-DEx is the current piecemeal, politically charged, hit and miss grant funding process that the Act you propose, if passed, will burden even further – see page 3, lines 17-25 and page 4, lines 1-6.
Instead, I ask that you please answer the following question…
If law enforcement information sharing is important enough to push though a Public Act, where is the nationwide project, with funding, to get all shareable law enforcement data loaded into the one system that would give ALL law enforcement officers and analysts access to collective knowledge of the nearly 18,000 law enforcement agencies?
The immediate answer might be “we already have one; N-DEx;” however, N-DEx is only a piece of the answer…it’s as they say, “one hand clapping.” And in all fairness to my friends and colleagues at the FBI CJIS Division, that program was only charged and funded to build the N-DEx bucket, they were never funded to actually go get the data to fill the bucket.
The strategy, for whatever reason back then, was relegated to a “build it and they will come” approach, that IMHO has not worked very well so far and may take another 5-10 years to work. I should also note that the bucket isn’t totally empty…there are quite a number of agencies and regional projects, like LInX, that have stepped up and are helping to fill the bucket – however, if we want to expedite filling up the bucket, focusing on mandating more standards is not the answer
What I submit is the “other hand clapping” is the need for a shift focus, away from policy, standards, and technology, and establish a funded nationwide project that will offer a menu of choices and support packages to the Chiefs and Sheriffs that will enable them to start sending as many of their shareable records as possible to N-DEx.
Some of the options/support packages could include:
- Provide direct funding to agencies and regional information sharing systems to develop N-DEx conformant data feeds to N-DEx;
- Grant direct funding to RMS and CAD system providers to develop N-DEx conformant data feeds from their software, with the stipulation they must offer the capability at no additional cost to agencies that use their products;
- Establish a law enforcement data mapping assistance center, either bolted on to IJIS NIEM Help Desk, as an extension of NLETS menu of services, or through funding support at an existing information sharing project like the Law Enforcement Technology, Training, & Research Center who works in partnership with the University of Central Florida.
At the end of the day, we all know that the safety and effectiveness of law enforcement is greatly affected by the information he or she has at their fingertips when responding to that call.
Do you really want to leave it to chance that that officer’s life is taken, or a criminal or terrorist is let go because his or her agency wasn’t “lucky enough” to win the grant lottery that year?
So, let’s empower the single most powerful force that can make sure the information is available – the Sheriff or Chief leading that agency. Let’s stop with the unfunded mandates, laws, standards, studies, point papers, etc., and let’s finally put a project in-place with the funding necessary to make it happen.
v/r
Chuck Georgo,
Executive Director
NOWHERETOHIDE.ORG
chuck@nowheretohide.org
05.04.2012
Data, data sharing, JIEM, Law enforcement information sharing, LEIS, NIEM
I posted this response to a question on the LinkedIn NIEM group where someone asked about the slow rate of NIEM adoption; i thought i would cros post my response here.
What’s standing in the way of NIEM adoption?It’s about leadership.
- It’s about reducing complexity.
- It’s about getting the word out.
- It’s about opening up proprietary protocols.
- It’s about conformance.
- It’s even about standards.
What’s really standing in the way? Two things…a) utility and b) a market for it.
I think it would also be wise for us to take a few pages out of the eCommerce, EDI, EBXML world (and honestly, the internet as a whole). EDI became a standard because large companies said “if you want to do business with me, then you will stop faxing me POs and start sending them to me in this new thing called EDI. When XML appeared on the scene the same companies converted their information exchanges to EBXML and vendors and service providers folllowed suit – one might say if it weren’t for the EDI-to-EBXML movement, we might not even be talking about GJXDM or NIEM today; EBXML was groundbreaking in ts day.
So what’s in the way? I’ll look at this in terms of two things I mentioned above:
- Utility of NIEM– The “technology Acceptance Model” tells us that for increased adoption of a technology, it must be “useful and easy to use.” Today, however, we are having difficulty getting people to see the utility of NIEM, and it certainly has not proven itself to be easy to use either. Now, to be fair, NIEM started off life as dictionary of common data elements (words if you will) with working views of syntax and semantics. Then we have IEPDs. These are like sentences strung together, and by different authors, and the difficulty is that we don’t have a good way to know how well those sentences are strung together, whether or not we can assemble those sentences into comprehensible paragraphs, or even what “stories”(and where in those stories) those sentences might belong. In other words, I don’t think NIEM is coupled tightly enough to the business processes of Justice and Public Safety agencies. To become more useful, we must dust off JIEM, revalidate the inventory of Justice exchanges, and specifically tie them to NIEM IEPDs. And while we do this, we must clean up the inventory of IEPDs, remove ones that are toublesome, and reference those IEPDs back to the Justice business process and exchanges in JIEM.
- A Market for NIEM– Unfortunately, reuse has NOT always result in cost savings. There are a number of examples where agencies have had bad experiences with implementing NIEM, whether it was because of lack of skill of the integrator, poor IEPD design, poor project planning, immature integration tools, or good old politics, saying an agency will save money by using NIEM is not a strong position right now. To resolve issue (after we join NIEM and JIEM) I think we must attack the problem at the root–in the technology acquisition process. Stop with the buttons and bumper stickers and neat shirts (I have one too). What we need to do is drive NIEM use through RFPs and contracting processes. Of course, we have to first clean up the clearinghoue, but then we must help agencies to craft RFP language that they can use to call for use of NIEM and “NIEM-enabled” web services to effect the information exchanges called out in the business processes to be suported by the new technoogy acquisition. While some vendors have demonstrated leadership in this area, the real driver (in a free market economy) is the contracting process–vendors will invest in their ability to adopt and integrate NIEM if it’s in their financial interest to do so–they do have payrolls to meet and investors to keep happy. Some shining light in this quest is also the effort by IJIS and others who are working hard to establish a “standards-like” effort to clean up IEPDs and to help vendors demonstrate conformance (or compliance) to those standards for their products.
Your comments/thoughts are welcomed….r/Chuck
02.06.2011
computer security, cyber security, data sharing, Information sharing, law enforcement, Law enforcement information sharing, LEIS, security, security threats, Uncategorized
So it’s no great revelation that public safety has benefited greatly from public private partnerships, and I’m cool with that, especially when we are dealing with technology that saves lives. However, a press release hit my email inbox today that made me think of the risks to security and privacy when we implement innovative technologies.
Before I get into the story it, let me be v-e-r-y clear…I am NOT here to debate the effectiveness or morality of red-light/speed enforcement systems, nor am I here to cast dispersions on any of the organizations involved in the press release…this blog posting is strictly about using the Gatso press release to emphasize a point about security and privacy – when we engage in innovative law enforcement technology solutions, we need to take extra care to adequately address the security and privacy of personally identifiable information.
Here’s the press release from Gatso-USA:
GATSO USA Forms Unique, Strategic Partnership with Nlets
Earlier this month, GATSO USA was approved as a strategic partner by the Board of Directors of the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (Nlets). Nlets is….general narrative about NLETS was deleted. The approval of GATSO is an exciting first for the photo-enforcement industry.
Nlets will be hosting GATSO’s back office and server operations within the Nlets infrastructure. GATSO will have access to registered owner information for all 50 states plus additional provinces in Canada. The strategic relationship has been described as a “win-win” for both organizations.
From Nlets’ perspective, there are key benefits to providing GATSO with hosted service. Most importantly, it virtually guarantees personal data security. Due to this extra step of storing personal data behind the DMV walls of Nlets, the public can be assured that security breaches — such as the recent incident with PlayStation users — are avoided.
From GATSO’s perspective, hosting the system with Nlets will provide a ruggedized, robust connection to comprehensive registered owner information — without the security issues faced by other vendors in this industry. Nlets was created over 40 years ago…more stuff about NLETS was deleted).
The main points I took away from this press release were:
- Nlets is going to host the back-end server technology that GATSO needs to look up vehicle registration information of red-light runners;
- Gatso is going to have access to vehicle registration information for all vehicles/owners in ALL 50 states in the U.S. and (some) provinces in Canada; and
- And, because it’s behind Nlets firewalls, security is not an issue.
Again, please don’t call me a party-pooper as I am a huge advocate for finding innovative ways to use technology to make law enforcement’s job easier. However, I am also painfully aware (as many of you are) of the many security and privacy related missteps that have happened over the last few years with technology efforts that meant well, but didn’t do enough to make sure that they covered the bases for security and privacy matters. These efforts either had accidental leakage of personal information, left holes in their security posture that enables direct attacks, or created opportunities for nefarious evil-doers with legitimate access to use that access to sensitive information for other than honorable purposes.
After I read the press release, I thought that it would be a good case-study for the topic of this blog – it involved innovative use of technolgy for law enforcement, a psuedo-government agency (Nlets), two foreign-owned private companies, and LOTS of PII sharing – some might even say it had all the makings of a Will Smith movie. 🙂
To help set the stage, here are a few facts I found online:
- Gatso-USA is a foreign company, registered in New York State, operating out of Delaware; its parent company is a Dutch company, GATSOmeter BVGatso.
- Gatso does not appear to vet all of the red-light/speed violations itself; it uses another company – Redflex Traffic Systems to help with that (Redflex is not mentioned in the press release).
- Redflex seems to be a U.S. company, but it has a (foreign) parent company based in South Melbourne, Australia.
- Finally, there are no-sworn officers involved in violation processing. Red-light/speed enforcement cameras are not operated by law enforcement agencies; they outsource that to Gatso, who installs and operates the systems for local jurisdictions (with Redflex) for free, (Gatso/Redflex is given a piece of the fine for each violation).
There are no real surprises here either; there are many foreign companies that provide good law enforcement technologies to jurisdications across the U.S., and outsourcing traffic violations is not new…BUT what is new here is that a sort-of-government agency (Nlets), has now provided two civilian companies (with foreign connections) access to Personally Identifiable Information (PII) (vehicle registrations) for the entire U.S. and parts of Canada…should we be worried?
Maybe; maybe not. Here are nine questions I would ask:
- Personnel Security: Will Nlets have a documented process to vet the U.S. and overseas Gatso and Redflex staff who will have access to this information through direct or VPN access to Nlets systems?
- Data Security: Will Gatso or Redflex maintain working/test copies of any of the registration information outside of the Nlets firewall? If so, are there documented ways to make sure this information is protected outside the firewall?
- Data Access: Will Gatso/Redflex have access to the entire registration record? or, will access be limited to certain fields?
- Code Security: Will any of the code development or code maintenance be done overseas in the Netherlands or Australia? If so, will all developers be vetted?
- Network Security: Will overseas developers/site suport staff have access to the data behind Nlets firewalls? What extra precautions will be taken to protect Nltes systems/networks from abuse/attack?
- Code Security: Will Nlets conduct any security testing on code loaded on the servers behind their firewalls?
- Stakeholder Support: Have all 50 U.S. states, and provinces in Canada, been made aware of this new information sharing relationship? Do they understand all of the nuances of the relationship? And, are they satisfied that their constituents personal information will be protected?
- Audit/Logging: Will all queries to vehicle registration information logged? Is someone checking the logs? How will Nlets know if abuses of authorized access are taking place?
- Public Acceptance: How do states inform their constituents that their personal vehicle registration information is being made available to foreign owned company? Will they care?
How these questions are answered will determine whether or not we should worry…
Did I miss any other important questions?
Beyond this particular press release and blog posting, I suggest that you consider asking these kinds of questions whenever your agency is considering opening/connecting its data systems to outside organizations or private companies—it may just prevent your agency from becoming a headline on tonights news, like St. Louis –> St. Louis Police Department computer hacked in cyber-attack .
The bottom-line is that whenever you take advantage of opportunities to apply innovative technologies to public safety, make sure that you cover ALL the bases to protect your sensitve data and PII from leakage, direct attacks, or misuse and abuse.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
r/Chuck
28.01.2011
data sharing, Information sharing, Law enforcement information sharing, LEIS
Almost two years ago, i responded to a blog posting by Jeff Jonas entitled “Nation At Risk: Policy Makers Need Better Information to Protect the Country.” After a recent discussion about law enforcement information sharing with a colleague, i thought it might be worthy to re-run my response here…read the posting below and let me know what you think…r/Chuck
March 17, 2009
Hi Jeff,
With sincere apologies to Sean Connery, I am dismayed that people are still bringing a knife to an information sharing gun fight—the importance of information sharing, data discoverability, security protections, metrics and incentives, and empowerment have been documented many times over since I became involved in information sharing in 1999 and have proved to be of little value to making information sharing happen.
I believe a significant reason for this is that information sharing has been seen as the “main thing.” Information sharing should NEVER be seen as the main thing; it is simply a means to an end. I have never forgotten what Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems said—“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” And, the main thing for government is safe streets, clean air and water, a strong economy, etc…NOT information sharing.
The “guns” that we need to bring to the information sharing table are simply engaged executive leadership and accountability for mission results.
Of the many significant information sharing projects around the country that I have been a part of, I can tell you that the most important ingredient for successful information sharing is: “An agency executive who actively communicates an operational imperative for mission success and then holds their managers accountable for using information sharing as a critical enabler for achieving desired mission results.” [I have a few blog posts on the subject at http://www/nowheretohide.org/wordpress]
While I agree that good security, good technology, good project management, good metrics and the like are necessary, none of this will matter if the need for information sharing is relegated two or three levels down the organization chart or is just seen as an edict from above—federal, state, and municipal agencies are already choking on multiple (and often conflicting and unfunded) mandates.
With my apologies to our President, the PM-ISE, and the Markle Foundation there is nothing more they can print on a sheet of paper to make information sharing happen—hundreds of executive orders, national strategies, task force reports, and security policies have been published—what more could they possibly say?
I believe it now comes down to the individual will of executive leadership in those federal, state and municipal agencies who hold the information that should be made shareable and their capacity to make it happen within their respective agencies. And that Jeff is the one area where I do believe that President Obama and our Congress can help—by simply ensuring that the people they choose to lead those agencies a) truly embody the will, character, and leadership qualities to achieve the mission and b) understand the value that information sharing brings to help make that happen.
r/Chuck Georgo
chuck@nowheretohide.org
03.08.2009
data sharing, Evaluation, Information sharing, LEIS, NIEM, Performance Measures
I just finished reading of your appointment on the FederalNews Radio website. As you begin your review of the state of information sharing and the ISE, I would like to offer up some thoughts as someone who has been an information sharing evangelist for nearly a decade. here are seven points to consider:
- Resist the urge to see information sharing as an outcome. Information sharing is a means to an end, not the end itself. Each federal agency, every state and regional fusion center, and all law enforcement intelligence units should have a clear set of information requirements, questions if you will, that information sharing and the intelligence process should work to answer–hold agencies accountable for having clear and valid requirements. This has been a common practice in the intelligence community for decades and should be a practice for all information sharing elements.
- Build clear accountability into the information sharing process. Every federal agency, fusion center and law enforcement agency should have one person, preferably an impassioned, well-respected leader, that can ensure that their agencies requirements are well documented and communicated horizontally across federal boundaries and vertically to local, state, and municipal agencies, and (where applicable) private sector organizations.
- Establish clear linkage of information sharing to agency operational performance measures. Just as staffing, information technology, facilities, and utilities are seen as strategic resources in a performance-based budget, information sharing must be seen as a resource to be strategically used to help an agency achieve its mission. When measuring the success of information sharing, focus on the extent to which it helped achieve agency goals–just as counting cases in law enforcement is a misleading way to judge public safety success, counting RFIs, records shared, SARs submitted is not a good way to gauge information sharing success–successful information sharing can only be measured through the extent to which it helps agencies (at all levels) achieve their operational goals.
- Discourage agencies from using stovepiped portals for information sharing. All shareable data should be available as a “service” for consumer agencies to ingest into their systems and not through a dedicated portal that users will need a discrete login to access. You can read my previous “Portal-mania” blog post for more detail here, but all federal agencies should be required to make their data accessible through National information Exchange Model (NIEM) based web services. This will enable consumer agencies to integrate multiple data streams into their workflow and will reduce the number of websites and portals analysts are required to access to perform their work.
- Give the same amount of attention to what is shared and how it is shared. Over the last few years, a significant amount of effort has gone into how information is shared at the expense of understanding the depth and breadth of information actually being shared. Many regional and national information sharing efforts still only contain basic levels of information, or worse are just pointer systems that require additional human effort to gain access to the actual record. Encourage agencies to communicate to each other what specific information is being shared, and what is not being shared, and help everyone understand the consequences of their decisions.
- Encourage maximum use of NIEM and the Information Exchange Package Descriptions (IEPD) contained it its clearinghouse. NIEM has emerged as the dictionary of shareable data elements. When you string together sets of these data elements to satisfy a specific business need, an IEPD is born. The NIEM IEPD clearinghouse contains more than 150 IEPDs, many of which apply to national security, law enforcement and public safety missions. While many federal agencies have pledged their support of NIEM, more effort is needed to ensure that they first seek to use IEPDs already contained in the clearinghouse and do not develop one-off IEPDs designed to meet very narrow applications.
- Finally, foster a culture of transparency to help communicate an appreciation of personal civil rights and civil liberties. All information sharing and intelligence operations should engage in proactive efforts to help alleviate any fears that individual privacy and liberties are violated by any of the actions taken by those agencies. In my September 3, 2009 blog posting I list ten questions a fusion center director should ask of their own intelligence operations. I’d like to offer up these questions as a beginning framework for any information sharing or intelligence operation. They also serve as a good framework for evaluating the extent to which information sharing and intelligence operations are in fact seriously working to do the right thing.
In closing, I hope you can see how these seven points help to frame how you might structure a results oriented evaluation of information sharing across our federal agencies and with our state and regional fusion center, and private sector partners. Taken together you will be able to report the extent to which agencies have:
- Documented their information sharing requirements – what needs to be shared;
- Someone who can be directly held accountable for effective and proper information sharing;
- Linked their need for information to specific operational goals and strategies;
- Implemented mechanisms that makes it easy for other agencies to access their information;
- Ensured that they are sharing the right information (most meaningful) information;
- Taken advantage of NIEM as a way to save money and expedite information sharing; and
- Taken measures to proactively diffuse public (and media) perceptions of information misuse.
I wish you well in your new role as Senior Director for Information Sharing Policy.
Regards,
Chuck Georgo
chuck@nowheretohide.org
28.06.2009
data sharing, Information sharing, JIEM, law enforcement, Law enforcement information sharing, LEIS, N-DEx, NIEM, Processes, Strategy
Remember the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercial? “You got chocolate on my peanut butter “…”No, you got peanut butter on my chocolate “…? Well, this is one of these stories…
It’s no secret, the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) is a huge success. Not only has it been embraced horizontally and vertically for law enforcement information sharing at all levels of government, but it is now spreading internationally. A check of the it.ojp.gov website lists more than 150 justice-related Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD) based on NIEM–it’s been adopted by N-DEX, ISE-SAR, NCIC, IJIS PMIX, NCSC, OLLEISN, and many other CAD and RMS projects.
For at least the last four years, Search.org has been maintaining the Justice Information Exchange Model (JIEM) developed by Search.org. JIEM documents more than 15,000 justice information exchanges across 9 justice processes, 75 justice events, that affect 27 different justice agencies.
So if JIEM establishes the required information exchanges required in the conduct of justice system business activities, and NIEM defines the syntactic and semantic model for the data elements within those justice information exchanges…then…
Wouldn’t it make sense for JIEM exchanges to call-out specific NIEM IEPDs?
And vice-versa, wouldn’t it make sense for NIEM IEPDs to identify the specific JIEM exchanges they correspond to?
Here’s a diagram that illustrates this…
Let me know what you think..
r/Chuck
chuck@nowheretohide.org – www.nowheretohide.org
16.06.2009
data sharing, Information sharing, Law enforcement information sharing, LEIS, Uncategorized
If you haven’t heard about the Department of Health and Human Services Federal Health Architecure and CONNECT project, I suggest you pop over to this website where documentation for version 2.0 of the software resides:
http://www.connectopensource.org/display/NHINR2/Release+2.0+Home
CONNECT is an open source software gateway that connects public and private health orgaizations to the National Health Information Network. Think of it like a giant peer-to-peer N-DEx, but with an open source “front-porch” that drops into each agency and extracts the data from back-end systems.
I’ll be doing more investigation into the CONNECT project to see if we can adapt it for law enforcement information sharing use–the closest thing to this on the LEIS side is the FINDER project in orlando, FL.
as always, comments and thoughts welcomed.
r/Chuck
chuck@nowheretohide.org – www.nowheretohide.org
09.01.2009
CJIS, data sharing, Information sharing, law enforcement, Law enforcement information sharing, LEIS, public safety, Strategy
Some who read this may take it as a rant against agencies/providers who say we need more money for implementing law enforcement information sharing (LEIS), but in-fact, this post is really about understanding the landscape and influencing the choices and priorities of state and county policymakers and the affected law enforcement executives.
Let me first layout the agency landscape :
- There are about 14,000 state and local law enforcement agencies;
- In roughly 3,000 counties;
- That make up the 50 states of our great nation.
Now let’s layout the funding landscape:
- For 2008 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) allocated $3,200,000,000 (billion) for state and local assistance grants;
- In that same year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) made another $2,000,000,000 available;
- For 2008 that’s a total of $4,200,000,000;
- For 2007 that number was $4,500,000,000;
- For 2009, we are hoping that number stays about the same or goes even higher.
- To all these numbers you must add funding from the Department of Defense, Department of Transportation, Department of Health and Human Services, or State funding sources for LEIS.
Finally, let me lay out the cost landscape for LEIS:
- In my eight or so years of experience of building and deploying LEIS, I’ve seen the costs associated with hooking up an agency to vary between $5,000 and $80,000 per record system connection;
- On average though, I feel the safer number is between about $20,000 and $40,000;
- For arguments sake, let’s use the high number of $40,000.
Now comes the fun part…let’s do some math…
- To be realistic, let’s say that 25% of the 14,000 agencies are already sharing information;
- That leaves about 10,000 agencies left to connect;
- At $40,000 an agency, we would need a total of $560,000,000 (Million);
- Divide that by the 3,000 counties, and we will need about $190,000 per county;
- If we do this over three years, that’s only $63,000 per county, per year for three years!
With (on average) every county getting about $1,400,000 every year for law enforcement and public safety (out of the $4.2 Billion allocated annualy), I would like to think that we (collectively) can see the benefits of LEIS enough to spare $63,000 a year for three years to get it done.
Here’s where the issue of choices and priorities comes in. If we can agree that the money IS there, what we really need to work on are ways to convince the policymakers and law enforcement exectutives in those counties that investing a little in LEIS is a better investment than whatever it is their currently spending their part of the $4,200,000,000 on. Do you agree?
I’d also like to know what role youthink the IACP, MCC and NSA would play here?
Thoughts and comments invited…and yes, I used a calculator…;-)
r/Chuck Georgo
02.01.2009
CJIS, data sharing, Evaluation, Information sharing, law enforcement, Law enforcement information sharing, LEIS, Performance Measures, Processes, public safety, SOA, Strategy, Technology, Uncategorized
Tom Peters liked to say “what gets measured gets done.” The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) took this advice to heart when they started the federal Performance Assessment Rating Tool (PART) (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/part/) to assess and improve federal program performance so that the Federal government can achieve better results. PART includes a set of criteria in the form of questions that helps an evaluator to identify a program’s strengths and weaknesses to inform funding and management decisions aimed at making the program more effective.
I think we can take a lesson from Tom and the OMB and begin using a formal framework for evaluating the level of implementation and real-world results of the many Law Enforcement Information Sharing projects around the nation. Not for any punitive purposes, but as a proactive way to ensure that the energy, resources, and political will continues long enough to see these projects achieve what their architects originally envisioned.
I would like to propose that the evaluation framework be based on six “Standards for Law Enforcement Information Sharing” that every LEIS project should strive to comply with; they include:
1. Active Executive Engagement in LEIS Governance and Decision-Making;
2. Robust Privacy and Security Policy and Active Compliance Oversight;
3. Public Safety Priorities Drive Utilization Through Full Integration into Daily Operations;
4. Access and Fusion of the Full Breadth and Depth of Regional Data (law enforcement related);
5. Wide Range of Technical Capabilities to Support Public Safety Business Processes; and
6. Stable Base of Sustainment Funding for Operational and Technical Infrastructure Support.
My next step is to develop scoring criteria for each of these standards; three to five per standard, something simple and easy for project managers and stakeholders to use as a tool to help get LEIS “done.”
I would like to what you think of these standards and if you would like to help me develop the evaluation tool itself…r/Chuck
Chuck Georgo
chuck@nowheretohide.org
www.nowheretohide.org