Federal Public Safety Initiatives

In the post 9/11 era, information collection and sharing has become of vital importance to this nation. One environment rich in public safety information that has been largely ignored is this nation’s county and local jails. These facilities, ranging from just a few beds in small and rural counties to tens of thousands in our major metropolitan areas, house individuals who are involved to some degree in a wide range of past, present and potential future criminal activities. These inmates are the key to a tremendous repository of criminal and terrorist information.

In December 2004, the National Sheriffs’ Association hosted a series of roundtable meetings with representatives of small, medium and large jail facilities. These sessions were designed to collect primary information from jail officials as to the current status of their information collection and dissemination activities or programs. Based on the information developed in those roundtable sessions with jail administrators, and personal interviews that were conducted with Sheriffs throughout the country, it was determined that jail administrators must have proactive and formalized jail information gathering systems that result in not only obtaining information but in properly using and disseminating it. Armed with this information, and using a formal data collection system, personnel will be better equipped to make decisions about internal jail operations and to work to improve communication with external entities to assist with community safety.

Based on the information gathered during the initial stages of the project and utilizing grant funding provided by the COPS Office, the National Sheriffs’ Association established the following as its project mission statement: “To develop a national model to collect jail-based information and disseminate it to appropriate law enforcement agencies in order to solve and/or prevent crimes and improve public safety.”

As a result of this research, and under a grant awarded by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice, Community Safety Institute has developed a Jail Information Model and Dissemination training program for corrections personnel. The primary purpose of this model is to collect information in the jail regarding internal jail safety and security issues, criminal activity within the jail, and criminal activity outside of the jail. This new Jail Information Model (JIM) encourages and promotes a paradigm shift from traditional corrections activities to proactive public safety capabilities. This shift helps to solve current crimes, reduce or prevent future ones, save lives and property in the jail and community, and improve community quality of life.

With positive results being reported from the three pilot sites where JIM was initiated, the JIM training and process will be instituted in jails throughout the country.