NCJ Number
154904
Date Published
1994
Length
190 pages
Annotation
This report presents the results of a study intended to facilitate the development of a system for creating, assembling, and making available in a timely manner information that satisfies the goals and needs of Philadelphia's juvenile justice decisionmakers; this study specifically addresses ways to share information across agency boundaries.
Abstract
The study first identifies several policy issues that must be resolved to move forward in meeting the needs expressed by members of the various juvenile justice agencies. Principally, the study found unevenness in the development of information systems across the participating juvenile justice agencies. No coordination of information system development has been considered. At the level of interagency information sharing, needs are significant, but no mechanism exists for their identification or for meeting them. This report concludes that the juvenile justice system can best share information by means of a clearinghouse, a computer system that is linked to each participating agency and that controls access to information. Moreover, it recommends, for both legal and political reasons, that the clearinghouse be placed in and controlled by the Family Court. The report further recommends development of an information system director and an oversight committee of policymakers who will support development of this system. At the level of intra-agency information system development, the report presents several recommendations, taking into account developmental steps currently underway. Appended interviewee list, descriptions of current information systems, and a report of the Systems Development Project of the National Juvenile Justice Statistics and Systems Development Program of the National Center for Juvenile Justice