Reduce the time from arrest to trial; Much of the time that passes between arrests and completion of trial is protracted while court and justice officials gather information on criminal histories, research and validate court data, review and gather defendant information. Having this information available on a single system reduces the number and time to perform multiple record checks in multiple agencies, so cases can be schedule faster and disposed of more efficiently.

Reduce continuances because of conflicts. Often, a citizen will appear for a court event only to find that the event has been rescheduled because of a conflict with another case that the attorney, public defender, police officer or witness may have. A single scheduling system that checks for conflicts and does not allow double booking reduces the number of times a person has to appear at the court, and makes it possible for the public to schedule their court and justice related actions more efficiently.

Record Criminal history information faster and more accurately. Since information is transferred automatically from the courts to the police when a person is found guilty, the records accessed are more up to date. This more accurate information will allow the justice system officials to make more informed decisions when a complaint is brought forward. For example, if a hearing is scheduled on a support order review, the fact that there are outstanding warrants for prior cases or that the individual also has a non contact order in place due to prior family violence should be known before the individual is scheduled for court.

Establish a clear audit trail to track violent and habitual offenders. Everyone who is authorized will have access to the same information at the same time. As a result, an individual in the custody of the sheriff’s office will not be released while there is an outstanding warrant for another case. A person paying a traffic fine, will be informed that there is also outstanding support payments due. A prisoner wanted on a rape charge will not be released after completing his work release program for a trespassing charge.

Reduce the paper chase faced by the public when trying to initiate a case. Currently, multiple paper records are created to initiate a case. This is time consuming to the public and results in long delays, frustration, and delays --- sometimes of four to eight weeks in getting a case scheduled and processed. In the new system, the clerk or intake staff will automatically be able to perform records checks, print standard forms and schedule hearings at the same time the individual citizen is making the complaint.

Assist in better decision-making for intake and release programs. Pre-trial and Probation staff often make initial decisions, especially in emergency cases on less than complete information because of the multiple sources of records and agencies that have information on a single juvenile or adult. Coordinated justice allows a caseworker to rapidly cross reference information maintained on the individual in several places, (jail, counseling, prior probation, work release, schools, other courts) to make an informed initial placement decision, as well as an informed release or probation decision.

Correctly assign juveniles to human services programs. Foster programs, juvenile intervention and family service agencies have limited capacity. If a juvenile court judge or caseworker has accurate information on which programs are available for a juvenile client, it is much easier to properly assign kids to needed services. Including monitoring information on the capacity and success rate of certain types of intervention programs as well as access to schedule records on attendance will assist the court in making faster, more qualified decisions when placing juveniles back into the community or into special needs programs.

Audit trails for tracking money due to the court, witnesses, victims. The county will find it easier to track moneys due. Often, a single individual owes several types of fines, fees and support to the county. It is difficult, if not impossible to track on a defendant by defendant or fund by fund basis what is owed. Coordinated financial records and tracking assist in accurately reporting what funds are due and for what reason. They also assist management in targeting specific delinquencies and debtors to get money paid.

Provide accurate crime management information. The public is very concerned about juvenile crime, family violence and criminal acts occurring on the streets. In a metropolitan area the size of Metro-Davidson County, manually tracking and then forecasting trends, decreases or increases in violent crime, or validating the need for more domestic intervention clinics is nearly impossible. The integrated system puts the information on existing crime and reports of violence, juvenile truancy, drug abuse, etc. on line and readily available for the public to access. Since acquiring federal funds always requires statistics on trends, this information is vital if Nashville is to get more outside grant funding for specialized programs to combat family violence, violent crime and juvenile delinquency. The information comes from the courts and justice agencies.