Justice Information Exchange Modeling Program, National Information Exchange Model Tools Support, and Privacy Policy Support

The Edward Byrne Memorial Discretionary Grants Program, administered by the Office of Justice Programs' (OJP's) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), furthers the Department's mission by assisting state and local jurisdictions in improving the criminal justice system and assisting communities in preventing drug abuse and crime. In fiscal year 2007, the Edward Byrne Memorial Discretionary Grants Program will focus on funding local, regional, and national efforts within six major categories: 1) targeting violent crime; 2) preventing crime and drug abuse; 3) enhancing local law enforcement; 4) enhancing local courts; 5) enhancing local corrections and offender reentry; and 6) facilitating justice information sharing. All categories combat, address, or otherwise respond to precipitous or extraordinary increases in crime, or in a type or types of crime.

The SEARCH Group Inc., the National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics, will provide technical assistance to support of the Justice Information Exchange Model (JIEM) Program. JIEM offers practitioners the unique and no-cost capability to accomplish one of the key steps to successful information sharing: the capture of information exchange requirements. This program will strengthen this capability through four goals: continuing to train additional practitioners and industry members on use of the JIEM methodology and tool, obtaining feedback from JIEM users via the JIEM steering committee, promoting promising practices of information sharing through JIEM research, and implementing practitioner-driven features in the JIEM tool (including linkages with emerging National Information Exchange Model tools). In addition, Search will enhance the implementation of information sharing privacy policy at the state, local, and tribal level. This program will address this challenge by conducting research and privacy impact assessments, and by providing technical assistance on privacy policy development.

CA/NCF