Public Safety and Criminal Justice
An Audit Report on The Accuracy of Criminal Justice Information System Data
at the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Criminal Justice
December 2001
Report Number 02-013
Overall Conclusion
Based on our review of the Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS), we believe
that, overall, controls to ensure the completeness and accuracy of CJIS data
are stronger today than they were five years ago. However, the Department of
Public Safety (DPS) must make additional improvements to further enhance the
completeness and accuracy of its portion of CJIS, including improvements in
identifying incomplete and duplicate records, strengthening information technology
controls, and bolstering disaster recovery planning.
In addition, the Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) must make agencywide
technology improvements to correct weaknesses affecting the Corrections Tracking
System (CTS), its portion of CJIS. CTS still lacks some basic controls to capture
and store reliable data. TDCJ should continue working to address all requirements
of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, Chapter 60, and should continue to
strengthen information technology (IT) controls that will improve CJIS data.
Key Facts and Findings
- DPS needs to implement procedures to better match court dispositions with
arresting events. Information in CCH, which is the DPS portion of CJIS, is incomplete
because DPS is not always able to match court dispositions with arresting events
and complete the criminal history records.
- Some offenders have more than one state identification number (SID). Although
each offender in the CCH system should have one unique SID, for various reasons
arrest fingerprints of persons with prior criminal histories do not always match
against the fingerprints already on file. This causes some offender criminal
history files to be incomplete.
- DPS should strengthen password controls within CCH and improve the management
of planning and purchasing to ensure that data is protected, users are held
accountable, and expenditures are appropriate to accomplish goals. Disaster
recovery planning should also be improved.
- It is critical that TDCJ comply with the Texas Code of Criminal Procedures
requirement to add Incident Tracking Numbers (TRNs) to CTS. When TRN information
is unavailable, there is a risk that TDCJ will not be able to ensure that complete
and accurate offender information is reported from the time an offender is arrested
until the time the offender is released.
- TDCJ must ensure that its Community Supervision Tracking System (CSTS), which
is used for offenders on probation, is expanded to include the functionality
it was intended to offer. Currently, CSTS does not contain SIDs for all individuals
in the system. Since notifications concerning arrests of probationers or parolees
are flagged and sent out using SIDs, it is impossible for the notification feature
to work properly until each individual in the CSTS has been assigned a SID.
- TDCJ needs to strengthen basic information technology controls to provide
a more effective and accountable IT environment. This includes restricting access
to the production environment, following change management procedures for system
enhancements or maintenance, and planning for the rollout of new systems and
processes.
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