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Consider the logistics behind arresting, arraigning, bailing, and remanding offenders. Transportation is traditionally at the center of the process, with police officers having to travel to other jurisdictions to get an arrest warrant, transport the prisoner to the appropriate courthouse to get an arraignment, and generally use valuable time on work that does little to enhance crime prevention or crime solving.
But what if expensive, insecure, risky, and time-consuming prisoner transportation and document handling could be replaced by an electronic process? Oakland County, Michigan, built upon a strong information technology (IT) infrastructure to deliver a system that uses teleconferencing instead of prisoner transports for obtaining warrants and arraigning suspects. This system, known as OakVideo, has achieved its goals so well the county has trademarked it. Furthermore, the county shares the system with other law-enforcement agencies in southeastern Michigan through a 30-year-old partnership for sharing IT applications.
OakVideo and its trademarked key component, DigitalArraignment, work by providing two basic functions: an Internet protocol-based records management system (RMS) to support document workflow and detective research, and multipoint videoconferencing for processing prisoner arraignments and arrest warrants. Court security has been enhanced because prisoners "appear" in court via videoconferencing, and police time has been saved by transferring dockets and arrest warrants electronically, so detectives do not have to go prosecutors' offices or wait in line.
The RMS and videoconferencing systems have saved $6.1 million in 21 months (including benefits derived by local police departments and courts). Returns on investment are expected to improve further as other videoconferencing applications currently under development go live over the next several years (see Exhibit 1).
Assisting and improving local government operations is a high priority for the county executive and the Board of Commissions, and their vision--along with that of court benches within the county--is responsible for the program's success. In addition, because the Oakland County IT department is a service bureau for county and local government applications, existing infrastructure and partnerships between local governments provided strong support for the OakVideo project.
The key physical development supporting the system was the completion in 1999 of OakNet, a 480-mile network of Gigabit fiber optics connecting all city, village, and township administrative, police, fire, court, and other facilities to a centralized service bureau. OakNet connects the IT department and local government units for high-speed data, voice and video transmissions, Internet access, and e-mail service. (See Exhibit 2 for the characteristics of Oakland County and the technical requirements for OakVideo and Exhibit 3 for a schematic of OakVideo and OakNet.)
CLEMIS ORGANIZATION
The existing partnerships among local governments had long been institutionalized by the Courts and Law Enforcement Management Information System (CLEMIS). CLEMIS has been operating for 30 years as a clearinghouse for shared applications whose IT infrastructure is operated and subsidized by Oakland County It is a consortium of approximately 225 public safety entities (police, sheriff, prosecutors, courts, fire, and homeland security) in a six-county region in Southeastern Michigan. CLEMIS provides 25 system applications to its members, including OakVideo.
At the outset of the needs analysis and design phases of the OakVideo project, Oakland County secured assistance from all entities that would be affected to ensure that their operating needs would be met. Oakland County was funding the cost of development and deployment of OakVideo (which is the case with most other CLEMIS projects), and the project attracted active and enthusiastic participation quickly. Generally, there was no resistance to the change in operations, although several judges did object to videoconferencing in lieu of face-to-face arraignments and chose not to make use of the service.
The actual deployment required far more effort than originally expected, however, because the OakVideo design and program needs were more sophisticated than the state-of-the-art videoconferencing equipment and software could initially support. On a number of occasions, work-around solutions were required because the equipment or software available could not meet a requirement. County engineers were eventually able to overcome all the equipment and software obstacles.
Despite some significant early glitches, staff was able to use some system functions right away Warrant processing, which had not been envisioned as a major part of the system, was a notable early adopter. Oakland County's original deployment model called for the individual district courts to go live at the same time as police departments within that court's jurisdiction. Because of deployment delays at the courts, however, county officials decided to wire and deploy all of the police department/sheriff substation offices and holding cells, even though they were not yet able to communicate to the related district courts. Law enforcement officers immediately began using the system to secure warrants, reducing their need to travel to the prosecutor's office, and the warrant teleconferencing component of the system was born. The quote "build it and they will come" definitely applies to this case of users finding a use for new technology.
DIGITAL ARRAIGNMENT
At the heart of OakVideo is the multipoint video arraignment and its related RMS. Most video arraignment systems are "point-to-point:' with a single point (usually the local police department) sending a video signal that is directly connected to a receiving courtroom. Point-to point systems, however, cannot be used for an extensive overhaul like the one undertaken by Oakland County Redesigning offender processing between local government and county operations required multipoint videoconferencing capabilities, integrated with workflow management and RMS that also connect different levels of government. The videoconferencing equipment, related software, and OakNet simultaneously connect district and circuit courts, the prosecutor's office, county jail or police holding cells, and law-enforcement departments.
OakVideo also has embedded workflow management and RMS for all text, forms, reports, digital pictures, videos, voice fines, and any other file that can be converted to a digital form. The Web-based RMS centralizes all offender files at the IT department, making them accessible by all parties associated with the criminal process--police officers, prosecutors, courts, community corrections and probation officers (who can assist in setting bail bonds), and defense attorneys. OakVideo automates the paper flow from the police computer in the patrol vehicle through to the final court arraignment hearing, mitigating the use of paper files, faxes, and related clerical filing and copying tasks.
The workflow and records management capability is as easy to learn and use as an e-mail system because it uses hyperlinks to accomplish its functions, ensuring the timely processing and sharing of data. The system has eliminated frustration and scrambling for lost, misplaced, or incomplete files. Video arraignment files are automatically backed up locally and also transferred via file transfer protocol to a central server at the IT department for permanent storage. Online access to documents and digital video recordings of arraignments conducted by video is expected to be available for three to five years before additional storage is required.
The arraignment process takes between five and 30 minutes, but transporting the offender and processing files had taken hours, significantly delaying the arraignment process. The new system minimizes offender transport, reduces law-enforcement costs, increases court security, and facilitates handling of data among all law-enforcement and judicial officials, allowing dockets to be managed more efficiently
Law enforcement officers spent substantial amounts of time transporting offenders, often on overtime, as the police departments could not predict arrests of offenders in other jurisdictions. The multipoint functions of OakVideo enable the arresting police department to connect directly to the remote district court where the warrant was written, and the offender appears over the video connection without having to be moved. In addition, offenders housed in the county jail over the weekend for Monday arraignments no longer have to be transported for arraignment.
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The new video arraignment process has saved money by allowing police officers to be redeployed from prisoner transport to more productive efforts in their districts. More than 7,000 arraignments were conducted via OakVideo between fall 2006 and fall 2007,saving an estimated $1.7 million in law-enforcement officer costs. That savings has allowed local police departments to retain police officers during economically trying times and provide more effective service to the public.
The reduction in prisoner transports and in-court appearances also addresses courtroom security, which has become a hot topic for local governments. In fact, several high-risk offenders escaped from a holding cell in one local district courthouse just before OakVideo was implemented there. There is a risk of escape any time offenders are moved. Also, when offenders are arraigned in-person in a courtroom, the family members of the victim and offender are often in close proximity, which can lead to volatility and occasionally results in courtroom security issues. Video arraignments bypass these security issues and related costs.
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