Tracking Parolees Using Databases 2Tracking Parolees Using Databases 2

The Interstate Commission for Adult Offender Supervision plans to create a centralized database by end of the year to help the state and local law enforcement keep tabs on the 250,000 parolees and criminal offenders serving probation nationwide who are given permission to move between states. The database and accompanying management tools will also be used to provide victims with more timely, accurate information about their cases.

"Local law enforcement is interested because there's never been a national database of parolees and probationary offenders," says Terry Borjeson, VP of government operations for Softscape Inc. Softscape's CaseOne database and case-management software will serve as the project's backbone.

The commission was formed in 1937 as the Interstate Compact for the Supervision of Parolees and Probationers in order to provide sole statutory authority for regulating the transfer of adult parole and probation supervision across state boundaries. In 2002, the National Institute of Corrections and Council of State Governments renamed the organization the Interstate Commission for Adult Offender Supervision and set about creating a modern infrastructure that uses standards to pass data over an integrated network.

In late August, the commission worked with human-capital software maker Softscape to consolidate extradition, progress report, transfer, violation, and other forms used by various states and provide access to those standardized forms via the commission's site. In the next phase, Softscape is working with the individual states, plus Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, to host their offender data in a database to which each state can subscribe. The third phase, slated for early next year, will let the system automatically generate and distribute reports about individual offenders whenever their status changes.