A Broader Vision of Criminal Justice DOC Commissioner Reflects on 39 Years in the Criminal Justice System T he grandson of an Italian immigrant and the son of a Thompsonville police detective, Department of Correction Commissioner Leo Arnone says when he began his career as a frontline correction officer in 1974, he aspired to becoming a sergeant. “I’m the luckiest person I know,” he says with a chuckle. He never imagined he would retire as Commissioner of the largest agency in the State. The Commissioner’s father, Leo M. Arnone, was a 34-year police veteran. “He loved his job every day he did it,” and says Arnone, he was very proud to be the first Italian police officer in Thompsonville. Arnone explains that, as the son of a police officer, he developed a great respect for the profession. He became an auxiliary policeman in 1970 right out of high school, but decided “to strike out on my own… I didn’t want to be known as ‘Leo’s kid.’” Growing up in the Somers area, he knew lots of people who worked for the prison system; “nice people,” not the “stereotype of the mean-spirited toughguy prison guard.” So he took the civil service exam and figured he’d try it for “a few years.” That was 39 years ago. Arnone recalls 1974 as an exciting time because in 1968 the Connecticut Legislature had overhauled the prison system, transitioning from a county jail system (which most states have) and a prison department (which was not run by the Governor), to create the DOC. Connecticut was one of the first to create this unified system in 1974. “There was a lot of excitement; we were going from this grim environment” to one where “we should be doing something to offer rehabilitation to inmates.” There are still only three unified systems in the country. It’s a much more costeffective system, according to Arnone . “I believe in public safety, but also doing something to rehabilitate inmates… The theory running through The next CISS Monthly Status Meeting is March 6 Continued on page 2 CJIS Governing Board Co-Chairs Mike Lawlor, Under Secretary, State of Connecticut OPM and Judge Patrick L. Carroll, III Deputy Chief Court Administrator Mike Lawlor, Under Secretary, OPM IN THIS ISSUE Commissioner Leo Arnone 1 CJIS Governing Board 2 CISS Program Overview 3 CISS Project Updates: Wave 0, V 1.5 4 Search vs. Information Exchanges 4 Lessons Learned 4 CISS Business Update 5 CIDRIS Update 6 OBTS Update 6 CISS Technology & the Development Environment 8 CJIS Roadmap March 2013 2 CJIS Governing Board Revolutionary Technology Linking Connecticut’s Criminal Justice & Law Enforcement Community March 2013 — Vol. 2, No. 3 www.ct.gov/cjis Governing Board Co-Chairs Mike Lawlor, Under Secretary, Office of Policy & Management Judge Patrick L. Carroll, III, Deputy Chief Court Administrator • Members Leo Arnone, Commissioner, Dept. of Correction Reuben F. Bradford, Commissioner, Dept. of Emerg. Services & Public Protection Eric Coleman, Senator Co-Chair, Joint Committee on Judiciary Michelle Cruz, Office of Victim Advocate Melody Currey, Commissioner, Dept. of Motor Vehicles Donald DeFronzo, Commissioner, Dept. of Admin. Services Gerald M. Fox, Representative Co-Chair, Joint Committee on Judiciary Kevin Kane, Esq., Chief State’s Attorney John A. Kissel, Senator, Ranking Member Richard C. Mulhall, Chief, Conn. Police Chiefs Association Rosa Rebimbas, Representative, Ranking Member Susan O. Storey, Esq., Chief Public Defender Erika Tindill, Chair, Board of Pardons and Paroles CJIS Senior Management Sean Thakkar, Executive Director Mark Tezaris, CJIS Program Manager Nance McCauley, CJIS Business Manager Rick Ladendecker, CJIS Technology Architect Comments, corrections, and inquiries about this newsletter should be directed to: Sean Thakkar, CJIS Executive Director, Sean.Thakkar@ct.gov, or Margaret M. Painter, Senior Communications Manager, Margaret.Painter@ct.gov DOC Commissioner Leo Arnone with Erika Tindill, Chair of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, in July 2012. Corrections [at that time]… was that most inmates were sick and they could be corrected. It was exciting to be in this field, with psychologists and psychiatrists talking to corrections officers; you were meeting some of the most interesting people on both sides of this business. “For me, as a kid out of high school, working with some of the most brilliant psychologists, it was fascinating… “Who else can sit down and talk to a serial killer and find out why he did what he did? That isn’t something that most people could do or would want to do. But you’re getting to look closely at a segment of society that’s isolated from the rest of the world.” But clearly, the dark side of this business makes it difficult. And that dark side wears on staff; many people can’t leave it at the door. “Prison is a dangerous place. Being a corrections officer is a hard job… We are constantly reminded of what an important service we provide to our communities by protecting them from those in maximum security, who have killed, raped, assaulted, kidnapped. They are very bad and dangerous people.” Arnone attributes his longevity to being able “to leave my job at the door. I managed to do this for 39 years by compartmentalizing.” On the other end of the prison population spectrum are non-violent offenders. “We lock up a lot more people than we need to,” Arnone says. “There are a great number that will benefit from treatment.” From his first week as a correction officer, he was impressed with the idea that “we need to reach people when they’re young.” Older adults don’t have the capacity to change. Juveniles, if provided with the appropriate treatment, can be guided in positive directions. In 1995, he went from the DOC to the State Judicial Branch to work on rebuilding the state juvenile detention system. In 2007, Arnone moved to the Connecticut Department of Children and Families as the Bureau Chief of the Juvenile Service Bureau, where he was responsible for juvenile offenders. “A lot of people were thinking, Why are we calling 16-year-olds adults? It didn’t make sense. A 16-year-old does not Continued on page 7 CJIS Roadmap 3 March 2013 CJIS Program Overview Mark Tezaris, CJIS Program Manager Public Act No. 08-1, Sec. 40, enacted in January 2008, begins, “the Criminal Justice Information System Governing Board shall design and implement a comprehensive, state-wide information technology system to facilitate the immediate, seamless and comprehensive sharing of information between all state agencies, departments, boards and commissions having any cognizance over matters relating to law enforcement and criminal justice, and organized local police departments and law enforcement officials.” The CJIS operations office began staffing up in early 2012, so for those of us working here, the first quarter of 2013 is a first anniversary. The past year has been a period of intense activity — building a staff, forging relationships, negotiating the purchase of hardware and software, creating project plans, and gathering information about the business and technical processes of CJIS stakeholders. Through the course of this work and communicating with stakeholders about all of this, it’s easy to lose perspective on the larger purpose of CISS. Why are we doing this? The short answer is that CJIS and CISS were mandated by Public Act 08-1. Underlying 08-1 is a strong commitment to public safety and an understanding that technology now allows us to exchange and store information in ways we once only dreamed of. It’s not about servers, LANs, or which agency will store what information; it’s about reducing risk and saving lives. Every day, every week, police dispatchers and officers on the street are making decisions about events and offenders that directly impact the safety of those officers and the public. Information is at the crux of all of these decisions; for instance, being able to track down a violent offender from one CISS is not about servers, LANs, or which agency will store what information; it’s about reducing risk and saving lives. shred of witness testimony — “after the shooting, I heard someone call him Razor.” The lack of information — e.g., a suspect’s history of weapons-related charges — has been directly linked to the death of police officers. There are people out there getting hurt because of lack of access to critical information — the information that CISS is designed to give them with efficiency and speed. We need to bring the focus back to the vision, as well as the legal requirements, for CISS and what it’s intended to do for officer and public safety. So while the servers and LANs are important, communication amongst stakeholders is even more important. We are far enough into this project that we’ve begun to hit some obstacles. Some of these issues were discussed and documented in our recent “Lessons Learned” exercise (see page 4). The key to working through many of these obstacles is open communication — What and where are the friction points? Who are the decision-makers and what compromises can be worked out to reach our goal? As many of you know, our staff spent a great deal of time in January and February working on project plans for CISS moving forward. Our schedules for working with stakeholders depend on these plans. In coming months, we will be meeting with individual agencies — from commissioners down to the staff level — to mesh our plans with agency needs and to reach consensus on details and timing. In the meantime, we are moving forward with building the CISS Development Environment (page 8), adding more source systems to CISS Search, coordinating work on the PSDN (Public Safety Data Network), and preparing for interfacing CISS with the State’s CAD-RMS systems. Stay tuned.  CJIS Roadmap 4 March 2013 CISS Project Management Updates John Cook, Lucy Landry, and Eric Stinson - Senior Project Managers Wave 0 V 1.5  Wave 0 V1.5 refers to the build-out of the new technology architecture necessary to support the CISS application. These work activities include setup and configuration of servers, storage, and networking infrastructure residing inside the DAS/BEST data center. In addition to the hardware, the architecture includes the installation of server operating system software to manage a virtual server machine environment. IN BRIEF Objective: Complete technical environments required for CISS High level summary of scope: ■■ 4 separate environments: Development, System Testing, UAT/Training, Production ■■ Ability to perform backups and restores ■■ High availability/clustering; Enterprise networking & firewall capability ■■ Not in scope: Additional functionality or changes to existing functionality; more users Recently Completed: ■■ Hardware installation included: 9 Dell Servers, 2 EMC storage systems, and 2 Cisco networking switches ■■ Software setup & configuration included: Microsoft Server 2012 Operating System, Microsoft System Center’s Virtual Machine Manager, and Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Work Activities - Next 60 Days ■■ Build out of approximately 50 servers to support: Software Development, Sys Testing Environments, continued on page 8 CISS Information Sharing — Searches vs. IEs Lessons Learned The goal of CISS is to provide a state-wide system to facilitate the sharing of information between state agencies. At its most basic level, sharing occurs in two ways: through information exchanges and through searches. Information exchanges correspond to the flow of information that already occurs today. An event triggers a flow of information from one agency to another. For example, when a law enforcement agency issues a UAR for the arrest of an individual, that UAR triggers a flow of information. Information about the UAR is sent to other agencies as appropriate. If John Doe is arrested for drunk driving, the data associated with his arrest is shared with Court Operations and DMV. With CISS that sharing of information will be automated. Searches provide individuals with the ability to access information on an as-needed basis. An individual within an agency can run a search to answer a specific question. For example, an officer could run a search to determine whether a driver that he has just stopped has a past record. Has John Doe ever been arrested for drunk driving? With CISS, all pertinent information about that driver is accessible to the police officer. Information exchanges and searches both provide ways for information to be shared using CISS.  Capturing lessons learned from completed projects or those in progress is critical for the success and continued growth of any organization. It is essential to capture this information to develop best practices. It is crucial to not only absorb these lessons ourselves as project managers, but to also seek feedback and exchange this information with our project partners. Our findings from this feedback and analysis can then be incorporated into our ongoing project methodologies. There are three main benefits specific to the project and the project team members of going through a formal Lessons Learned review process: ■■ Provide the project team with constructive feedback for future project development efforts; ■■ Document project-specific issues that may be relevant to technical support after hand-off; ■■ Increase customer and stakeholder satisfaction, while offering useful project information as we move into post-launch support mode. The project goal of CISS Wave 0 V1 was to provide secure access to search functionality via the SharePoint portal. The CISS searches were to be limited to information in the Offender Based Tracking System (OBTS). Following the launch on January 10, the CISS project management office conducted a series of Lessons Learned sessions with key CISS Team continued on page 7 CJIS Roadmap March 2013 5 CISS Business Update IN BRIEF Nance McCauley, CJIS Business Manager In February, the CJIS business team met with stakeholders to reach consensus on the order in which source systems should be added to CISS Search. The search sequence was determined based on highest value to the law enforcement agency community. The CJIS business and project management teams collaborated on the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) tasks, estimates and schedules for the upcoming CISS releases. We also worked closely with the technical team to continue to document the RMS certification requirements for Wave 1 Uniform Arrest Report (UAR). We are also working on the requirements of the prioritized follow-up items from the first release. (See articles on pages 4, 6, and 8.) The CJIS business team viewed a demonstration of the new Board of Pardons and Parole Case Notes System in order to gain additional perspective and input to redesign the CISS screens. Representatives from CJIS community agencies will be meeting in a new forum — the CJIS Community Meeting — on Friday, March 8 to discuss business and technical issues from an agency perspective. The meeting will be co-chaired by Larry D’Orsi of Superior Court Operations and Evelyn Godbout of the Division of Criminal Justice. This forum will be similar to the “Implementation Meeting” that convened previously to share agency information. The group is expected to meet on a quarterly basis initially. For more information, contact Larry D’Orsi or Evelyn Godbout. Agency Source Systems for CISS Search Agency Source System Order for Inclusion in CISS Master Name Index/Computerized Criminal History (MNI/CCH) – Department of Emergency Services & Public Protection (DESPP) 1 Paperless Re-Arrest Warrant Network (PRAWN) – Judicial, Court Operations 2 Weapons/Special Licensing – DESPP 3 Protective Order Registry (POR) – Judicial, Court Operations 4 Offender Based Information System (OBIS) – Department of Corrections 5 Sex Offense Registry (SOR) – DESPP 6 Criminal Motor Vehicle System (CRMVS) – Judicial, Court Operations 7 Case Notes System – Board of Pardons and Parole (BOPP) 8 Line of Business (LOB) Driver History – Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) 9 Connecticut Integrated Vehicle and License Systems ( CIVLS) – DMV including LOB 10 Case Management System – Division of Criminal Justice 11 Centralized Infractions Bureau (CIB) – Judicial, Court Operations 12 Pre-Sentence Investigation (PSI) – Judicial, Court Support Services Division (CSSD) 13 Adult Case Management Information System (CMIS) – Judicial, CSSD 14 JUST FINISHED • CISS Agency Source System Priority Sequence • Demo of Board of Pardons and Parole Case Notes System NEXT MONTH • Continue project planning for upcoming releases. • Continue to refine CISS requirements for the next releases. • Continue to work with the Technical Team to document the requirements needed for RMS certification for Wave 1 – UAR Workflow. • Conduct DESPP field observations. 2013 CISS Monthly Status Meetings  Our monthly meetings are held the first Wednesday of every month (with exceptions around State holidays) at 101 East River Drive, East Hartford. ■■ April 3 ■■ May 1 ■■ June 5 ■■ July 10 ■■ August 7 ■■ September 4 ■■ October 2 ■■ November 6 ■■ December 4 CJIS Roadmap Naming Conventions for Waves and Releases When project management planning for CISS began more than a year ago, the concept for our naming conventions was that the Waves for Phase 1 of CISS would be numbered to correspond to the 8 workflows - hence Waves 1-8. When a decision was made to provide an early prototype of search capability, Wave 0 was inserted. The overall scope of Wave 0 was more than could be completed within the targeted timeframe, so the wave was divided into manageable components called versions. For Wave 0, we have versions 1, 1.5, and 2 - each representing specific objectives. “Wave 0 Version 2” will include new levels of search functionality. This wave has been renamed Search. The Search Wave will be implemented as a series of Releases. The first Search Release SR1 - will contain an improved user interface, additional search sources, and the top priority defect fixes from W0V1. Subsequent Search Releases will be numbered SR2, SR3, etc. until all desired search functionality for Phase 1 has been implemented. If there’s a reason to divide up the implementation of any of the workflow waves, then they would also be named as Releases. For example, if there are two releases for Wave 1, they would be named Wave 1 R1 (W1R1) and Wave 1 R2 (W1R2).  •Lucy Landry For more info www.ct.gov/cjis March 2013 6 CIDRIS Update Connecticut Impaired Driver Records System John Cook, Senior Project Manager The Connecticut Impaired Driver Records System (CIDRIS) has reached a stage of process improvement. CJIS and DESPP team members continue to evaluate and improve the accuracy of messages being sent through CIDRIS. One new initiative concerns the feasibility of using breathalyzer equipment that generate electronic reports. CJIS and DESPP recently met with Draegar, the primary provider of alcohol and drug detection equipment, to discuss options. From what we learned, several states including Massachusetts have moved to using electronic reports (in addition to the paper/tape based output) to reduce costs and improve the speed of report submittal. The current process involves collecting samples from OUI suspects in the barracks. A more formal review is also conducted by state police crime labs each week. Both activities use devices that create paper-based reports, which are adaptable for electronic reporting. However, there are technical and legal considerations that still must be reviewed. Technically, the breathalyzer units can be upgraded with new software and programmed to submit reports to a centralized repository securely in two formats - PDF and ASCII text. From the legal perspective, work will need to be coordinated with DESPP crime labs and criminal justice stakeholders including Judicial, DCJ, and DMV to ensure the integrity of any new process. It is estimated that the work to update the current system could take as much as one year to complete. But CJIS and DESPP will first need to perform a feasibility review to ensure that it will benefit the community.  OBTS Update Offender-Based Tracking System John Cook, Senior Project Manager Due to current CISS work activities, the OBTS system is in maintenance mode. Except for functionality that is required to support CISS, no major new functionality will be introduced until the CISS system is placed into a new server environment. Work with OBTS has been increasingly focused on integration with CISS. OBTS business and development team members’ work for the forseeable future will focus on identifying, analyzing, and fixing issues with the OBTS-CISS interface. Work is also progressing on several functional releases designed to better align periodic updates to CISS master indexes. The CJIS and DAS/BEST teams also continued work to upgrade OBTS servers to enhance performance constraints within the current system server environments. The next software migration release is planned in the next 60 days. For more information and background on OBTS, please visit the CJIS website. CJIS Roadmap Commissioner Arnone, continued from page 2 belong in an adult prison.” His work within the system eventually led to work on both state commissions that raised the age of juvenile jurisdiction from 16 to 18. “The most important thing we can do for juveniles [who get into trouble] to make a difference is to get them an education. Education is the key.” “I have seen the pendulum swing from one extreme to another… in 1974, there was a philosophy gaining popularity that all offenders could be rehabilitated. In the late ’80s and ’90s there was a real ‘get tough’ attitude about drug-related and other non-violent crime; quite a few of those people didn’t need to be in prison.” Arnone says that he thinks the pendulum has gravitated back toward the middle. The priorities of the Department of Correction are very clear: first is the safety and security of the public; second is the safety of staff; the third is inmate safety and then rehabilitation. For some offenders, like the 11 on death row and those serving mandatory life sentences, rehabilitation is not an option. But for many, the system can provide guidance in rebuilding lives. What becomes clear in a conversation with the Commissioner is that he is interested in a broader vision for criminal justice — whether it’s keeping troubled juveniles from becoming adult felons or looking for ways to reduce recidivism. He has also been a keen supporter of measures to prevent crime and support law enforcement officers in their jobs — both within DOC and in local law enforcement. Since being appointed DOC Commissioner by the Governor in 2010, Arnone has served on the CJIS 7 “We need to keep working together, keep an open mind, and not fear the unknown; in the end we’ll have a product that will benefit everyone in the State.” Governing Board. Arnone’s unique perspective across correction, judicial, and DCF, has allowed him to see every facet of the justice system. It is from this vantage point that he observes each agency has a tendency to jealously guard its information and protect it as their “turf.” “We are all working for the same people; I think we all want to serve our citizens. How can we do that if the criminal justice system isn’t sharing its information?” Arnone says he has reason to hope that some of those walls will come down as CISS moves ahead. Arnone points to the progress CISS has made and the change in attitudes he saw after the first limited demonstration of the system in July 2012. The State’s fiscal problems may pose some risk to CISS, as well as the plans of agencies in the CJIS community, and that exacerbates fear of change. “The state of Connecticut is known as the land of steady habits,” Arnone pauses and smiles. “We loathe change!” “There is fear that ‘If my job is to guard that information, and I don’t have to do that anymore, what am I going to do?’” As an example, Arnone cites DOC’s work to automate inmate accounts. Initially, the bureaucracy March 2013 really slowed things down. When the issues were deconstructed, it came down to fear that people were going to lose their jobs. That didn’t happen. “The bottom line is that we need to start acting as a unified system for the greater good. We need to remember what we’re doing this for: to get critical information to the beat cop faster. We need to keep working together, keep an open mind, and not fear the unknown; in the end we’ll have a product that will benefit everyone in the State.” As for his plans after April 1, Arnone says he plans to do some travelling with his wife, but he is staying firmly rooted in Connecticut and hints that he may volunteer his time for a worthy cause.  • Margaret M. Painter Lessons Learned, continued from page 4 members - the CISS project and leadership teams, and the User Acceptance Testers. Twelve project areas were reviewed: project scope and schedule, testing, requirements, help desk setup, design, backups and restores, development, production launch, technical environment, knowledge transfer, training, and “other.” Some of the key areas where we need improvement are: ■■ inconsistent change control, ■■ overburdening of the development and test environments, ■■ lack of SDLC best practices, and ■■ end-user input not solicited early enough. The CISS leadership team is currently developing an implementation plan to address these issues to optimize future CISS development efforts.  March 2013 8 CJIS Roadmap CISS Technology Update for Wave 0 V1.5 Rick Ladendecker, CJIS Technology Architect Building CISS The diagram to the right shows the logical design for CISS. This environment is replicated 3 times-for System Testing, User Acceptance Testing, and Production (for a total of 4 environments). There will be more than 200 virtual systems within CISS. The CISS technical team and Xerox are now in the process of creating the environments to support these four architectures. PSDN Rollout PSDN (Public Safety Data Network) is a series of Fiber-Optic networks installed in multiple rings across the State. Each ring supports multiple sites (that include any public institutions or agencies where emergency services may be required). Each LEA has unique networks that CISS will need to analyze to integrate with CAD-RMS systems. Since PSDN will be the primary conduit for data transmission between the LEAs and CISS, it is crucial to understand the network hierarchy so we can test, handle data transmissions, and analyze performance issues. CJIS staff will be visiting LEA sites over the next 6 months to help coordinate PSDN equipment installation, confirm equipment security, validate the network layout, and collaborate with LEA technical staff to answer questions related to the impending connectivity between the LEAs and CISS. Jeanine Allin, CJIS Public Safety Liaison, a former Sergeant with the Newington PD, will be facilitating these meetings. Her background and knowledge of LEA business workflows will be instrumental in this process.  In Brief - W0V1.5 continued from page 4 ■■ Network Design and Deployment of Firewalls Work Activities - Next 90 Days ■■ Complete remaining build out to support: ■■ High Availability and back-up recovery, User Acceptance Testing and Production Environments ■■ PSDN - Site surveys now underway; as of Feb 28, CJIS staff conducted 8 site visits ■■ Number of sites targeted for con- nectivity increased to 40 ■■ 27 sites are designated for rollout in the next 90 days; remaining site rollout will be determined when first phase is complete ■■ Installation schedules are being developed on an ongoing basis. ■■ Meetings with each LEA to discuss installation schedule and activities   