NCJ Number
210474
Journal
Law Enforcement Technology Volume: 32 Issue: 6 Dated: June 2005 Pages: 94,96,99
Date Published
June 2005
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This article describes four approaches to sharing data among law enforcement agencies.
Abstract
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the lack of connectivity between law enforcement agencies has been the subject of much debate and research. Efforts to improve connectivity among agencies have been labeled Justice Information Sharing initiatives and grants have been made available for these initiatives through the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice (DOJ). The author reviews four Justice Information Sharing approaches to integrating law enforcement data: point to point information sharing, Hub and Spoke information sharing, Application Broker information sharing, and information sharing Data Warehouse. Point to point information sharing has historically occurred in departments any time data needed to be shared between applications. The interfaces can be done quickly, but there is little standardization and reusability. The Hub and Spoke approach is becoming more widespread and involves standardizing on one public safety vendor and then sharing the usage of the various systems. Application Broker information sharing involves a central application that is accessible via a browser over the Internet; search engines can process queries on disparate databases. The Data Warehouse model is a central data warehouse that disparate public safety databases feed into and can be queried across the region. In the future, all of these approaches will need to be built around the national standard Global Justice XML Data Model, created by the DOJ. Exhibits