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| MEMORANDUM FOR GUY K. ZIMMERMAN |
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Assistant Inspector General for Audit |
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| FROM: |
Paul R. Corts
Assistant Attorney General for Administration |
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| SUBJECT: |
Comments on OIG Draft Report: The Joint Automated Booking System |
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Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Office of Inspector General's draft report entitled, “The Joint Automated Booking System." I believe that the draft report accurately portrays the completion status of the three identified program goals for the Joint Automated Booking System (JABS) Program. Automating the booking process (Program Goal 1) has been the highest priority of the three identified program goals. After September 11, 2001, we felt it was imperative to support the "War on Terrorism" by automating the booking process and providing a secure mechanism to rapidly and positively identify an individual based on a fingerprint submission to the FBI's IAFIS. The JABS-IAFIS interface has reduced the time to identify an individual from several weeks for a paper fingerprint submission to less than one hour. Equally important, the JABS booking submissions provide a "real- time" updating of the FBI's criminal master files that are available to all Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. This initial capability was the logical first step before addressing the process reengineering required to accomplish Program Goals 2 and 3.
The JABS Program Management Office (PMO) has deployed the Automated Booking Station (ABS) to approximately 900 of the 1050 Departmental sites and developed the USMS Inter-Agency booking functionality to provide automated submission of booking packages for Federal law enforcement agencies that routinely bring their suspects to the USMS for booking. The USMS Inter-Agency booking initiative provides JABS services to agencies in eleven (11) Federal departments (Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Interior, Homeland Security, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development), as well as, the Postal Service and the General Services Administration.
These agencies can participate in JABS without having to actually deploy an automated booking station in their offices. As of March 2005, over 800 non-DOJ sites in 41 agencies/task forces have submitted booking packages via the USMS Inter-Agency booking functionality.
I agree with the six recommendations contained in the draft report. Below are specific comments regarding each of the recommendations.
1. Develop, document, and implement a plan to complete or revise the project goals to share and exchange information in ways that reduce redundant steps between components, and to establish the offender tracking system.
The finding that there is significant redundancy in data entry as an offender progresses through the judicial process confirms the JABS program goal on data sharing. I concur that the component's processes and mission critical systems that interface with JABS need to be reengineered to streamline those processes and eliminate needless data reentry. The JABS PMO began the concept and requirements for phase one of its data integration project in August 2004. The data integration project will address data exchange, eliminating redundant data entry, and capturing the data required to establish the federal offender tracking functionality. It is expected that this initiative will be developed in phases, with initial capability deployed to the USMS and BOP during FY2006, and full capability during FY2007. It should also be noted that the technology required for Core JABS to directly interface with component's mission critical systems using standards based methods did not exist when Core JABS was first released in July 2000.
2. Coordinate with USMS regarding the need to deploy JABS to all USMS sites taking custody of federal arrestees.
The JABS PMO intends to deploy an automated booking station to every site designated by the USMS by the end of CY2005. The USMS has designated that 285 sites will receive the ABS. The Department's goal is that all Department fingerprint submissions will be submitted to IAFIS via JABS. If the USMS identifies additional sites requiring an ABS, the JABS Program will accommodate that request.
3. Require that all federal offenders arrested by Department components be booked through JABS.
The Department's goal is that all Departmental arrests will be processed or recorded in JABS. Data from the FBI reflects that we have made significant progress towards this goal. The components have indicated that there are instances where their law enforcement officers take arrestees to the local law enforcement office for booking. The JABS PMO will work with the components through the JABS Board of Directors to determine how to best capture this data in JABS.
4. Work with the FBI to ensure that the ABS fingerprint quality screening procedures are enhanced to more closely mirror the FBI's procedures when the non-proprietary quality control standard is released. (Currently the FBI and JABS use different quality screening software. For proprietary reasons, the software used by the FBI is not available to JABS.)
We understand that NIST will be releasing new standards for quality screening software in the near future. As soon as the new standards are released, the JABS PMO will evaluate how the ABS fingerprint quality assessment software can be made to match the FBI's fingerprint quality assessment software.
5. Develop a plan for future expansion of JABS. The plan should take into account interagency booking capabilities at the USMS, provide a clear definition of the universe of offenders to be included in JABS, and focus resources to optimize future expansion.
The BOP, DEA, and FBI deployments are complete. The JABS PMO expects to complete ATF and USMS booking station deployments by December 2005. The JABS PMO is analyzing the JABS and USMS Inter-Agency transaction data, to validate new deployment requests. We are also using the data to determine if ABS equipment can/should be redeployed to other sites to optimize JABS coverage within the Department.
6. Establish and implement oversight procedures to ensure that contractors comply with their quality assurance plans.
Based on the lessons learned from the BOP development effort, the JABS PMO has strengthened its quality control procedures for software releases by performing audits of the software and related documentation. Additionally, all new statements of work will require contract deliverables documenting that contractor processes contained within their Quality Assurance Plan were executed. This will include quality peer reviews and entry/exit readiness quality gates associated with the software development effort.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to comment on this draft report. We look forward to the resolution of the issues identified in your report and to further progress toward improved capabilities and efficiencies for Department law enforcement agencies in their efforts to keep America safe and secure.
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