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A Publication Featuring The Information Services
Technology of Maine State Government
| Volume VII, Issue
11 |
November/December
2004 |
 
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Improving Maine Department of Corrections
Offender Management Through Integrated Enterprise Technology
By Mark Kosturik
Maine
DOC’s challenge The Maine Department of Corrections (DOC) serves four
areas of correctional services related to the management of offenders in Maine - adult
institution, adult community, juvenile institution, and juvenile community. The DOC’s
total offender population is 15,000, with 2,300 housed in eight facilities statewide, and
the remainder serving their sentences in the community, under DOC supervision. About 1,200
DOC employees look after that population.
Historically,
the DOC experienced many of the same information technology (IT) challenges that most
large organizations deal with - managing numerous different legacy systems that had been
implemented independently of one another, do not effectively exchange data, and are
difficult and costly to maintain. The DOC had
a critical need to move to one centralized administrative system to look after offenders
of all ages, both within facilities and under community supervision.
In
the spring of 2002, the DOC teamed up with xwave to design and implement CORIS
(Corrections Information System), a full-featured web-based offender management system
that would fulfill the DOC’s vision, using the most advanced Microsoft technology
available - .NET. |
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The DOC wanted a complete .NET solution—both front and back. A
key reason for this decision is the fact that .NET offers certain advantages native to the
technology, such as web services and XML. Put
another way, XML and web-service capabilities naturally comply with .NET—further
facilitating integration and improving communication. XML also enables easier integration
with legacy systems.
CORIS, in production since November 2003, manages four key areas of
DOC operations. The first is offender profile - personal information, photos,
alerts, and sentences. The second area is prison management - offender security
classification, housing, movements, jobs, schedules, and financial management. Thirdly, CORIS handles community-based
corrections - investigations, risk assessment, treatment plans, and caseload
management. Finally, the solution supports all
central administrative functions - offender tracking, management reporting and
security.
The DOC is deploying CORIS in three phases: Phase One, which went
live in November 2003, delivered basic offender-management capabilities; Phase Two, which
is planned for December 2004, and Phase Three, expected in early 2005, will provide
advanced functionality such as an inmate financial system, and additional features
required by the users of the system.
The user interface Web-based solutions tend to require
extensive clicking and drilling down to navigate and access data. To ensure that CORIS
provides a positive user experience, the DOC and xwave collaborated extensively to design
a very rich user interface with an intuitive screen layout. Every
object a user needs for a particular task is typically on a single screen. To ensure easy
system navigation, global tree-menus are used to give one-click access to all areas of the
system.
Data integrity Data
from six DOC legacy systems were migrated simultaneously in the initial Phase One rollout.
In total over 3 million source records were
migrated into the CORIS database as part of the Phase One deployment. This allowed a seamless transition to the new
system with immediate access to all relevant historical offender records.
Reporting Putting data into an information system
is one thing; gaining information from that system is another. System reports are a
critical function; CORIS ensures this need is met by including an extensive array of
reports that were developed originally in Crystal Reports, and more recently with SQL
Reporting Services.
SQL Reporting Services offers a key feature
most other report writers don’t - XML. The report is stored in and rendered through a
single XML file, greatly improving ease of management and—more
importantly—expanding viewing and output options. As well, SQL Reporting Services
offers CORIS users yet another level of Microsoft integration.
Security CORIS incorporates role-based security:
users gain entry to the network via a combined ID and password that grant the user a
designated level of access, based on their job roles. To protect the data as it travels
from one desktop to the next, the DOC will be implementing Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
128-bit encryption within CORIS.
Achieving the vision As most corrections workers will
agree, it’s one thing to develop standards for governing offender management and
agency administration; it’s quite another thing to consistently implement those
standards across correctional institutions and probation offices. The task is made easier
when those locations are effectively connected—enabling relevant stakeholders to view
specific elements (the number of new intakes, the rate of recidivism, sentence length,
amount served to date) individually as well as in context with one another.
This broad sharing of data provides tangible operational benefits,
both to offenders and administrators. In summing up the benefits, one CORIS user at the
DOC uses the word ‘continuity’ — establishing a continuity of information
that allows corrections professionals to understand offenders better, determine
appropriate treatment, and follow up on it.
Questions? Contact the author by e-mailing mark.kosturik@xwave.com. See A Case For Integration on the web site for
additional information (http://www.xwave.com/us/industries_served/case_studies/coris.asp).
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Mark Kosturik is a senior project manager with xwave in Augusta, and
has been managing the CORIS project since it’s inception in 2002. Mark has a 15-year background in the IT industry,
and has worked with industry leading corporations including Nortel Networks and Compaq, as
well as with consulting firms where he has implemented innovative IT solutions for
government clients such as the Maine DOC, as well as the Internal Revenue Service and
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation at the Federal government level. |
[ Up ] [ Analyzing Data with Microsoft Access ] [ Challenge ] [ Every Day it Only Takes a Minute... ] [ Getting Ready for the Holidays? ] [ Gifts for you ] [ GIS Aids Educational Decision Making ] [ Improving Maine Department of Corrections Offender Management Through Integrated Enterprise Technology ] [ Knitters and Contributors Needed ] [ Maine’s Cultural Resources Information Center ] [ Phone Scam Warning ] [ Reorganization of IT Services ] [ State Police Launches New On-Line Crash Reporting System ] [ Thanks to Our Contributors! ] [ Transitions ] [ Virus Software for PDAs ]
