Justice Technology Services (JTS) provides a range of shared technology services for
major Justice Agencies of the State Government of South Australia. During the past
two decades, Justice Technology Services has established, maintained and enhanced
the Justice Information System (JIS), an offender-based tracking system used by 7,000
people in multiple agencies, including SA Police, the Department for Correctional Services and the FamiliesSA division of the Department for Families & Communities.

The Justice Information System is central to the Criminal Justice administration system in
South Australia solving the problem of information “silos” within agencies. Justice Technology Services provides authorized personnel at client agencies with access to the information they need to do their jobs. The CA IDMS database is a critical component of JIS, which handles more than one million transactions each working day — a five-fold increase since 1998.

CA IDMS was chosen as the foundation of the Justice Information System to provide a
highly responsive and scalable database that assured 24/7 availability. Round-the-clock
access to JIS is operationally vital for agencies such as SA Police which use information
from the system for many critical operational activities. Justice Technology Services,
General Manager, Spencer Briggs said CA IDMS has met those high requirements for
reliability. “Unscheduled downtime is close to zero over the past 10 years,” he said.

JIS has also evolved to meet emerging client requirements. Anticipating that agencies would need greater flexibility in how information is presented, Justice Technology Services has used CA IDMS enhancements including the CA IDMS™ Database and CA IDMS™ SQL to take advantage of open technologies, such as Java, JDBC and ODBC for web-based and PC access, while maintaining the long-standing tradition of integrity and rigorous security established with CA IDMS. 

Key Benefits:
• Stable, reliable and highly responsive database
• Evolves to meet future needs
• Balances security with access

CA Advantages:
• Long-term software partnership
• Clear communication about future product development plans
• Strong technology support

Key CA IDMS Benefits:
• High availability
• Tightly integrated security
• Flexible data access
• Intuitive client interfaces
• Leverages current investment

Key Business Processes:
• Single store for offender-based records used by Justice agencies
• Rapid access to information for authorized staff
• Securing confidential personal details
• Evolving to meet emerging agency information needs 

Mr. Briggs said the demand came as agencies wanted to leverage their investment in
CA IDMS while providing new functionality such as browser-based access and a graphical user interface. “We are moving into the open world,” he said. “We are maintaining a stable, reliable and highly responsive database while also utilizing the ‘open’ aspects of CA IDMS.”

“A major strength of CA IDMS is its ability to allow growth and flexibility in the development of JIS. It has not forced applications to be rewritten and reworked as the database grew,” said Mr. Briggs. “CA IDMS lets us incorporate additional data with minimal impact on existing applications, which makes it an evolutionary system. It can flex and shift and expand, so that while organisational structures come and go, our criminal justice system continues on. As we progressively adopt Web Services, CA IDMS will remain a key data repository.”

One example of how Justice Technology Services has redefined the role of its mainframe
platform to meet emerging business needs is by storing offender photographs within
JIS. By recording these images as binary data within CA IDMS, the system can provide
immediate access to both textual and visual offender records to authorised Justice
personnel from anywhere in the State.

CA IDMS also balances this vital role of providing access to needed details for agency
staff with the protection of confidential information stored in the system. This assisted
Justice Technology Services to become the first organisation in South Australia to be
certified to the AS7799 (now ISO27001) information security standard.

Mr. Briggs said security was a major priority in JIS. “CA IDMS lets us restrict access to areas of interest, so users only view information relevant to their needs,” he said. “We also use sophisticated analysis reporting that produces security audit reports to ensure there are no breaches of the areas of interest views.”

Mr. Briggs said CA provides very good technology support for CA IDMS and clear
indications of the product’s future development. “CA IDMS is a piece of infrastructure
that is central to the success of JIS,” he said. “JIS is not about technology — it’s about
maintaining a commitment to collaboration and sharing between Criminal Justice
agencies. CA IDMS is central — it’s what has kept the business together. A substantial
benefit of IDMS is its stability. Also, it has provided a phenomenal return on investment.
I can’t see anything on the horizon that would challenge it.”