The mission of the Criminal Justice Services Department is “to promote the safety of the citizens of Lewis and Clark County, the efficient and just treatment of defendants and offenders, the protection and healing of victims, and to work toward prevention of crime and the reduction of recidivism.” To that end the CJS department enlisted the assistance of the Justice Management Institute (JMI) to conduct a comprehensive review and assessment of the criminal justice data collection systems. The CJIS Initiative is focused on developing a comprehensive implementation plan for the recommendations provided by JMI. 

In February 2020, CJS contracted with Dr. Gregory Thomas of Roos Technologies, Inc. as the Project Manager for the CJIS project. The Project Manager has conducted as-is process flow and narrative analysis with CJIS Project Team members. Significant potential for cost savings and cost avoidance have been discovered, which would result from the automation of many of the manual data processes. In addition, developing the CJIS platform, including a public facing dashboard and executive level dashboards, would allow for significantly improved system-wide reporting capacity. 

In October 2020, CJS issued an RFP for Solutions Architect, to identify a vendor that would implement a fully functioning, intelligent information management system, which would automate data processes and provide comprehensive data reporting services across the various agencies and data systems involved. The RFP Review Team is in the process of selecting a vendor.