With the release of the National Institute of Justice's Criminal Justice Offender Tracking System Standard NIJ Standard-1004.00, agencies finally have some help with procuring and selecting offender tracking technology that meet their needs. Some six years in development, the Offender Tracking System (OTS) standard defines both minimum voluntary performance requirements and the methods used to test performance. Documents defining the associated certification program requirements for both new and refurbished OTS are still in development and will be released in the future, along with a Selection and Application Guide that will provide additional procurement and program implementation assistance. A certification program provides administrative oversight to laboratories that test devices to ensure that they meet or exceed the requirements of the standard. Until the certification program documents are released, agencies can use the criteria outlined in the standard as benchmarks in writing their procurement documents. However, they should be aware that until the certification program is in place, vendor claims to meet or exceed requirements have not been independently verified. Two additional documents, Offender Tracking Record Transfer Service Specification, Version 1.0 and Market Survey of Location-Based Offender Tracking Technologies, Version 1.1 offer information on how agencies can ensure that important data can be transferred from one type of system to another and make a side-by-side comparison of commercially available devices, respectively.
New Offender Tracking System Standard Provides Much Needed Guidance to Agencies
NCJ Number
250269
Journal
Techbeat Dated: September 2016 Pages: 3-6
Date Published
September 2016
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article details the National Institute of Justice's Criminal Justice Offender Tracking System Standard NIJ Standard-1004.00, and provides insight into how agencies can use the standard when making procurement decisions that meet their needs.
Abstract