Florida’s “Jessica Lunsford” Criminal Information System Comes on Line
Metatomix, Inc., the leader in semantic composite applications, today announced that the First Appearance criminal information system it developed for the State of Florida under the Jessica Lunsford Act has become operational. It is the nation’s first statewide criminal information system designed to provide real-time background checks based on a booking event. Most importantly, this system automatically notifies law enforcement officials and judges if an arrested person has a record of sexual crimes. It was developed under a contract awarded to Metatomix in August 2005.
The system is an expansion of the Metatomix-developed Judicial Inquiry System (JIS) that has been serving Florida’s criminal justice officials for more than 18 months. This system accesses federal, state, county, and local databases to provide real-time criminal and civil history from a single interface using a single query. The First Appearance system adds several key data sources — from disparate, incompatible software systems — to give judges and other criminal justice officials immediate access to information crucial for the proper handling of recently arrested persons before and during their first appearance for arraignment. These new data sources include:
- The Florida Department of Law Enforcement Sexual Predator Information
- The Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ)
- Real-time booking data
The advanced information system was mandated last spring by the Florida Legislature after a nine-year-old child, Jessica Lunsford, was sexually abused and murdered by a registered sex offender who had just been released from police custody after arraignment on an unrelated charge. A number of other states are considering similar legislation and a bill requiring a national real-time information system on sex offenders has been introduced in Congress.
“It has been a top priority to get this information system up and running as quickly as possible to give our law enforcement and judicial system the tools they need to protect the public,” said Mike Love, CIO of Florida’s State Court System. “It’s extraordinary that Metatomix was able to assemble such a complex and demanding system so quickly.”
“This is one of the most important applications that we have built to help make the world a better place,” said Mike Kinkead, CEO of Metatomix. “We are very pleased that we could put our advanced semantic composite applications technology to use in bringing a speedy solution to this pressing criminal justice need. Florida children, indeed all Florida citizens, will be much safer for it.”
With the First Appearance system, information about a new booking event at every jail facility in the state is sent to the statewide First Appearance system immediately upon entry. The system then initiates an automatic, comprehensive background check on the arrested parties, leveraging existing databases across multiple agencies for demographic information and any other identifiers. All this information is automatically forwarded to specified confidential Jessica Lunsford Act website locations available through the secure Florida State Courts Network. The consolidated profile is then easily accessible by the judge, state attorney, public defender, sheriff, and any others qualified to access and view the information at the arrestee’s first appearance in court.
About Metatomix, Inc.
Founded in 2000, Metatomix ( www.metatomix.com ) is an innovative software company that has delivered the industry’s first, commercialized semantic composite applications. Using a powerful combination of non-invasive, real-time integration and semantic technologies, Metatomix achieves an order of magnitude reduction in the time and cost of producing and maintaining applications. The company is dedicated to delivering business value and high customer satisfaction through the creation of new, dynamic, intelligent solutions leveraging our customers’ universe of applications, data, and services.
The company’s market-proven solutions have been improving and strengthening our country’s war on crime in both public safety and financial institutions since 2001, streamlining end-to-end enterprise processes in banking, finance and government. For more information, visit the Metatomix Web site: www.metatomix.com
Metatomix is a trademark of Metatomix, Inc. Other brand names or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
