Challenge
When Midland County went live with a new case management system, TechShare. Prosecutor, the time was right for further automating document indexing workflows. The county sought a solution for the intelligent classification of documents in the arrest packet and the automated document indexing with 28 data elements from the booking sheet.
An arrest packet contains several types of documents: intake screening reports, booking sheets, complaints, and where applicable, affidavits of emergency protective orders. The booking sheet is the official police record of the arrest of a person accused of committing a crime. It identifies the accused, the time and place of arrest, the arresting authority, and the reason for the arrest. District Attorney staff had been manually entering critical fields from the booking sheets into its case management system to make that information available to the public, in accordance with the Texas Public Information Act.
The Solution
Midland County focused its evaluation process on two indexing and redaction software vendors that had been rigorously evaluated by the Texas Conference of Urban Counties and awarded contracts. As part of its review process, the county requested a proof of concept to demonstrate the software’s ability to automatically capture manual data entry fields from a sample set of documents. Extract's indexing solution showed a robust ability to find data, even without custom rules. Additionally, Midland County cited that Dallas County’s DA office had selected Extract and was pleased with how its redaction project was going, giving Extract’s support team high marks for responsiveness. Midland County awarded the project to Extract.
The Workflow
Arrest packets are received multiple times a day. Extract customized Midland County’s user interface based on its unique requirements to facilitate document building/pagination, data capture and verification. First, operators use Extract’s Pagination tool to separate the various documents within the packet by individual, and then by document type. Advanced document classification identifies when an arrest packet includes an emergency protective order. When found, these orders are automatically separated from the rest of the jail screening and the operator is prompted to expedite processing of the emergency protective order.
Next, Extract processes booking sheets to automatically capture 28 data fields. The software is capturing the following fields with greater than 90% accuracy:
Home Address
Phone
Agency
Arresting Officer
Midland Police
Department Number
Arrest Date
Location of Arrest
Complaint Number
Offense Code(s)
Name
Driver's License
ID Number
State
Date of Birth
Height
Weight
Race
Gender
Hair
Eyes
Midland’s custom interface streamlines data verification with smart features such as auto fill, drop down menus, data tables and mandatory fields to ensure data is complete and accurate. Operators verify captured information. An XML file containing the booking sheet index data along with searchable PDFs of the jail screening and where applicable, emergency protective order, are output to a folder. TechShare Prosecutor monitors this folder and imports documents as they arrive for nearly real time filing.
About Texas Conference of Urban Counties
Texas Conference of Urban Counties is a non-profit organization comprised of 37 member counties that supports and coordinates communication, studies policy and provides training and education programs. TechShare is a project advanced by the Texas Conference of Urban Counties to provide opportunities for counties to collaborate on technology projects and share resources. Extract Systems entered into contract with Texas Conference of Urban Counties to provide Redaction and Auto-Indexing for counties adopting TechShare. Prosecutor Case Management module. Under this contract, individual departments or multiple organizations within a county may purchase these software solutions at favorable rates without the necessity of conducting a time-consuming procurement exercise.
About the Author: Greg Gies
For 20 years in the software industry, Greg Gies has been helping businesses, government agencies and healthcare organizations achieve their goals and carry out their missions by making better use of information and automating business processes. Greg has held positions in sales, product management and marketing and holds an MBA from Babson College.