CroatiaStatistical Training

Courts Session 7, January 18th, 10.30 – 12.00

An Electronic Case Management System – Use of a CMS for statistics and other information

With funding from the European Union

DEVELOPMENT OF MONITORING INSTRUMENTS FOR JUDICIAL AND LAW ENFORCEMENT INSTITUTIONS IN THE WESTERN BALKANS 2009-2011 Phase three – Training

Four areas of using CMS

• We can identify four areas of use of a CMS:1. Operational level2. Local management information (LMI)3. Central management information (CMI)4. National use for research and policy making (NAT)

• Typically, a CMS is built with primarily 1) in mind and possibly 2). 3) And especially 4) could easily be ‘forgotten’.

• One of the issues here is: in which area is detailed information on the record (case? offence?) level needed and where is aggregate information sufficient?

Four areas of using CMS

Operational level

• Supports handling cases, the primary use of a CMS

• Obviously detailed (record level) data needed

Four areas of using CMS

Local management information

• Information needed by the management of the court to regulate work processes.

• Information typically needed: workload of individual judges, development in types of cases, cases pending etc.

• Aggregate data are sufficient

Four areas of using CMS

Central management information• Information needed by a Ministry or Judicial

Council to establish and/or distribute resources needed. But also information given by the courts to give account of their activities

• Information typically needed: workload of courts, development in types of cases, cases pending etc.

• Aggregate data are sufficient

Four areas of using CMS

National use for research and policy making• Information needed by a Ministry, Statistical Office

and Research institutes to establish the working of the Criminal Justice System and to define future policies. Also to give account to the general public of the activities of the CJS.

• Information typically needed: detailed information on cases: offender, victim, crime type, conviction, punishment etc.

• Aggregate data are NOT sufficient, detailed data are usually needed

Extracting information from CMS

The question is how, for the LMI, CMI and NAT areas, the data are extracted from the CMS.

Six design decisions are important here:1. Direct access to the CMS or through an interface?

2. Extracting of detailed data or aggregate data?

3. Continuous or periodic extraction?

4. Different extractions for each area?

5. What data are exactly needed in every area?

6. How to deal with privacy issues?

Extracting information from CMS

First how this is organized in the Netherlands:

Flow of data, the Netherlands

COMPAS:

Administrative system used in 19 PS offices

Information from appeal courts

Special interface for CBS Mgmt Info System

for 19 PS offices

Interface for

Criminal Record Register

CBS Statistics Mgmt Info System for

Central Prosecutor Office

Central

Criminal Record Register

OMDATA

(WODC)

OBJD

(WODC)

Crimes only Crimes and misdemeanors

Extracting information from CMS

The first three decisions are implemented as follows in the Netherlands:

Direct access (d) or Interface (i)

Detailed data (d) or Aggregate (a)

Continuous (c) or periodic (p)

LMI i a* pCMI i a* pNAT i d c and p

Extracting information from CMS

The design decisions:

1) Direct access to the CMS or through an interface?

Generally speaking, direct access is too heavy a burden on the CMS. Also, the IT architecture is more complicated. This could only be an option for the LMI.

Extracting information from CMS

The design decisions:

2) Extracting of detailed data or aggregate data?

Detailed, record level, data is only needed in the NAT area. However, also in the other areas detailed data give more flexibility.

Extracting information from CMS

The design decisions:3) Continuous or periodic extraction?

– Continuous: Every time something important happens with a case (input, prosecution decision, court verdict, …) a record is written to an intermediate buffer.

– Periodic: Once every month / week / … an extract is made from the primary system.

Continuous is theoretically better, but more difficult to implement

Extracting information from CMS

The design decisions:

4) Different extractions for each area?

In practice, given the different needs, there could well be one extract/interface for LMI and CMI and another for NAT.

Extracting information from CMS

The design decisions:

Design decisions 4 and 5 will be discussed in the next session.

Relation with CBS / Dissemination and analysis

The following discussion applies to the National use for research and policy making (NAT) area only.

CroatiaStatistical Training

Courts Session 7, January 18th, 10.30 – 12.00

An Electronic Case Management System – Use of a CMS for statistics and other information

With funding from the European Union

DEVELOPMENT OF MONITORING INSTRUMENTS FOR JUDICIAL AND LAW ENFORCEMENT INSTITUTIONS IN THE WESTERN BALKANS 2009-2011 Phase three – Training