Digital Interoperability in Criminal Justice: Disrupting beyond technology
Digital interoperability – the digital exchange of information between organisations – can hold significant benefits for public protection. Whilst digital interoperability between core criminal justice organisations such as policing, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), and His Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) has seen developments in recent years, the vast potential of digital interoperability should be recognised further. For the criminal justice system (CJS), the role of the wider public sector, third sector, and even private sector organisations can be pivotal in:
- preventing individuals from entering the CJS
- identifying harm or criminal activity and thus individuals that should be part of the CJS
- supporting victims and witnesses as they interact with the CJS
- rehabilitating offenders to prevent them from re-entering the system
Schools, health care providers, mental health and substance abuse charities, victim support hubs, and even utilities and social media companies, amongst many others can support the CJS. Whilst digital interoperability must always be proportional and justified, when executed correctly, improved digital interoperability could hold significant benefits for timely justice, victim experience and ultimately preventing the public from harm.
The challenge is not the theoretical desire to drive digital interoperability but the feasibility of its implementation. Recent initiatives in the space have highlighted the complexity of the task at hand, which spans beyond just technology challenges, and throws into question the viability of implementing digital interoperability at the scale and pace required.
Undoubtedly, technology and data-led considerations do make implementing digital interoperability difficult between core criminal justice organisations and beyond. These include:
Legacy Technology: Multiple systems that exist in the CJS which are not set up to talk to each other, led by a historic vacuum of national solutions and standards. The common standards and the establishment of APIs which have been crucial in the success of open banking are put on the back foot by the legacy technology that dominates the CJS.
Data Sensitivity: The sensitive nature of the data held within the CJS has led to a nervousness of exploring digital solutions to share data between law enforcement and criminal justice organisations, let alone the wider public sector and partners.
Security Standards: Criminal justice organisations have some of the highest digital security standards, which many wider public and third-sector organisations are unlikely to meet – further increasing the nervousness to digitally share information.
However, successfully implementing digital interoperability requires a willingness to disrupt beyond technology barriers. These include:
Budget: in a multi-agency environment how do we agree on who pays? Is the value of digital interoperability equal to all organisations? It is important that organisations feel invested in the initiative to maintain digital interoperability as a priority throughout the duration of implementation. Consequently, for digital interoperability to be a success there is a need to quantify the benefits - a difficult task when a key success of interoperability materialises in negative events not happening.
Organisational Firefighting: in a similar vein, how do we get organisations that are struggling to address immediate challenges, to invest in digital interoperability that may not pay dividends for years to come? Again, the requirement for multi-organisational buy-in from the start, alongside a quantified business case is pivotal in making the case for change.
Governance: navigating governance structures in one public sector organisation can be challenging – how do we do this in multiple and potentially third and private sector organisations? A central governing structure established from the start that can provide clear direction for delivering the required change and can be a key enabler to driving accountability.
Supplier Landscape: the CJS technology supplier landscape is dominated by large-scale technology players with a limited incentive to update systems for increased interoperability. Any transformational interoperability initiative would need to identify commercial constructs that can be developed to disrupt the existing supplier market and encourage the involvement of SMEs. Learning how the health sector and banking have disrupted such markets could be of value here.
Capability: the power of a digital solution is only valuable if teams and organisations can practically apply it. Individuals beyond technical teams need to be able to digest, interpret and act on the insights that digital interoperability can deliver. Any large-scale digital interoperability initiative needs to be coupled with a significant business change initiative that invests in upskilling its people.
The impact of digital interoperability, when considered not only within the CJS but the wider public sector and even appropriate third sector and private sector organisations could hold significant benefits for justice, public protection, and victim experience. However, significant barriers prevent digital interoperability being addressed on the scale required, and most of these do not relate to technology or data. Initiatives to date have made important strides, but to really tackle digital interoperability on the magnitude it deserves we need to disrupt more than just the technology landscape: changes in policy, culture, and governance, combined with system-wide accountability and direction, must also be considered.
Authors
Vic Shepherd
