Data and technology are at the heart of everything we do

As consumers of services from private to public sector companies or as participants in the criminal justice lifecycle. Being able to understand individuals in a given context or interaction during the criminal justice system requires a complete picture of a person to be iteratively created and shared across the entire lifecycle

There are several dimensions to consider when seeking to create an integrated system that spans multiple organisations, geographies and cultures. Things such as organisational structure, clearly defined responsibilities, a culture of sharing and proactivity with open data policies are all important in enabling a Connected Justice. This article will focus on how technology can be leveraged to provide the foundation for open data policies and remove technical barriers to the sharing of data inter and intra department.

There are two areas to focus on with regard to the sharing of data and a connected criminal justice;

• Data Models - different applications across different departments that are involved in the end to end system will have different data models and application vendors will not want to customise their COTS products to adopt either a canonical data model set by a department/governing body or the data models of other vendors
• Security - how can data be securely shared with the right systems, teams and people whilst maintaining end to end visibility and governance

Data Models

As highlighted, the sharing of data across teams, departments and organisations is complex, particularly when you consider the plethora of data models that will exist in the numerous applications that are used to deliver the Criminal Justice service.

One view, adopted by many, is that if you are able to get all your data into one place (warehouse, lake or lakehouse) then you can more easily share it and use it for decision making. In reality, this is rarely the case, particularly for a federated process that traverses multiple organisations, there will always be the issue of who is accountable for the warehouse and infrastructure not to mention the technical complexity with delivering a database of that magnitude.

Whilst datahouses are an important consideration for organisations architectures, and often do have a role to play. Delivering a Connected Justice will require a different approach, an approach that focuses on the movement of data, synchronously or asynchronously, throughout the complex application ecosystem whilst minimising the customisation of those applications.

A composable API led connectivity approach has proven to enable this in a number of ways;
 

1. The layered architecture de-couples systems from one another
2. APIs/Integrations are considered assets intended to be re-used multiple times avoiding technical debt and expediting delivery
3. A canonical data model can be defined and managed at the process layer, leveraging re-usable RAML fragments. This abstracts data model ownership away from applications and avoids vendor lock in
4. Project delivery teams can focus on delivering innovative experiences for users and the public rather than being constrained by integration complexity; integration delivery will focus on building out an experience API that talks to the relevant process APIs to access/share data

Security

Assuming the integrations can technically be achieved by adopting this composable API led connectivity approach another key challenge and potential blocker for data sharing, is security. Open data policies, MOUs and DSAs are unlikely to get off the ground if there are considered to be security risks.

For government agencies, implementing an open data policy requires the ability to expose data in a secure and governed fashion to appropriate stakeholders; APIs provide an excellent means of doing just that. Using a platform that manages both the transformation of data, as well as the exposure and governance of that data through APIs, making it uniquely suited for open data initiatives.

In summary, in order to deliver a Connected Justice, a strategic focus needs to be given to Data and a change of lens for how integration should be leveraged to enable data to flow across the application ecosystem.