L.A. County deploys Global360 software to track DNA
Los Angeles County implemented the DNA Offender Tracking System (DOTS) from Global 360 to track nearly 1,200 daily arrests in the county and create case folders for more than 21,000 incarcerated inmates. The DOTS has saved staff time and streamlined data collection, said Ali Farahani, the director of integration services for the county’s information systems advisory body — a multiagency, multi-jurisdictional policy subcommittee of the countywide criminal justice coordination committee.
DOTS was deployed in response to the November 2004 passage in California of Proposition 69, dubbed the DNA Fingerprint Unsolved Crime and Innocence Protection Act. The act expands California state law regarding the collection and use of criminal offender DNA samples and palm-print impressions to help solve crimes. It requires all criminal offenders arrested for or convicted of certain crimes to provide deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, for analysis and inclusion in the California DNA and Forensic Identification Database and Data Bank program.
Farahani said the responsibility to collect DNA samples from eligible offenders is shared among 40 law-enforcement agencies in Los Angeles County. To manage data across these agencies, Global 360’s Case 360 case-management software was installed as a Java-based document-management and workflow engine. It is a Web-based application that the user logs in to and integrates with various other systems to retrieve the data needed for someone to make a decision about the DNA, he said. Then, the transaction and data are stored on a server.
It cost more than $500,000 to develop the system, Farahani said. The investment lets the county track the collection of criminal-offender DNA samples, have a database repository for inmate and arrestee data, and be able to identify subjects in custody who are eligible for DNA across local, state and federal agencies. Specifically, it retrieves the Consolidated Criminal History Reporting System (CCHRS) RAP sheet automatically, pre-populates the DOTS Arrest Booking Interface with data from CCHRS, validates the user-entered data on the DOTS Arresting Booking Interface and updates CCHRS with DNA collected status in real time.
“It actually retrieves a copy of the RAP sheet from our criminal history database and then displays that as a PDF to the user,” Farahani said. “And then the user looks at the data and makes a decision on whether to collect DNA. They record that decision in the database and then Case saves that record, saves a copy of the RAP sheet as a PDF document, and then sends a message back to the criminal database that we have collected DNA.”
It’s a high-volume transitional system in near real-time, moving data from one database to the next in only a few seconds, Farahani said.
“From booking we receive the transaction in a matter of seconds, two or three seconds,” he said.
Farahani said the system creates department-wide efficiencies. He said a centralized location for criminal data sharing creates a time-saving, paperless process.
“The efficiency is quite significant because now we have a centralized place or system where officers can check if DNA needs to be collected,” he said. “We also keep a digital copy of the RAP sheet so there is no need for paper.”
Proposition 69
California’s Proposition 69 requires collection of DNA samples from the following:
- Adults and juveniles convicted of any felony offense
- Adults and juveniles convicted of any sex offense or arson offense, or an attempt to commit an offense (not just felonies)
- Adults arrested for or charged with felony sex offenses, murder, or voluntary manslaughter (or the attempt) to commit such offenses
- Adults arrested for or charged with any felony offense (starting in 2009)
