NCJ Number
209805
Journal
Law Enforcement Technology Volume: 32 Issue: 4 Dated: April 2005 Pages: 72,74,80
Date Published
April 2005
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This article describes the characteristics and functions of "Justice XML," which provides both structure and semantics that enable law enforcement and criminal justice systems to share information with one another, regardless of how the information is represented in each system.
Abstract
Justice XML refers to GJXDM, the Global Justice XML Data Model, which uses "Extensible Markup Language" (XML) as the framework for structuring information in a document. Traditional database software was designed for competition among vendors rather than cooperation in sharing data among databases. Consequently, agencies that wanted to share information had to buy new systems or pay to have custom interfaces built to link databases with different software management systems. The GJXDM addresses the problem of sharing data among different systems by using external schemas that represent code tables created and used by agencies; for example, codes used to report crimes under the National Incident-Based Reporting System can compose a table and therefore a schema. Schemas are then used to create reference documents, models that represent standard documents such as arrest/booking reports. Reference documents instruct developers in how to do GJXDM, so as more of them are published, agencies and vendors will be able to move closer to the standard. GJXDM's benefits include cost and time savings, clearly defined data ownership boundaries, longevity, and grassroots efforts. This article also discusses who is involved in implementing GJXDM, existing GJXDM-conformant systems, considerations in implementing GJXDM, and the quickest and easiest path to GJXDM conformance.