Public safety has long depended on the quick availability of information about criminals to law enforcement officers, and members of the general public. In fact, in order to provide this information in a more timely fashion, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson had asked public safety agencies throughout the state to reduce redundancies in providing this information. As a result, the New Mexico Sentencing Commission created the New Mexico Justice Network, a central online database consolidating information from various New Mexico state and local criminal justice and juvenile justice agencies and quickly providing that information.
The New Mexico Sentencing Commission was established in early 2003 at the University of New Mexico’s Institute for Social Research. The organization provides information, analysis, recommendations and assistance from a coordinated cross-agency perspective to the three branches of New Mexico’s government, and interested citizens, so they have the necessary resources to make policy decisions benefiting the criminal and juvenile justice systems.
The New Mexico Justice Network gives the public quick access to basic New Mexico criminal justice agency information, while a secure offender query program has been established to give law enforcement officers detailed offender information that previously resulted in hours of searching and compiling.
“I recently had to use it to find out about a warrant that was issued on a subject for failure to appear,” New Mexico State Police Sergeant Ted Collins said. “We found that the person’s original charges were violent felonies and our officers were on foot pursuit with the guy. He was ultimately caught but the information was very useful.”
Organizations using the database include the UNM Campus Police, New Mexico State Police, Albuquerque Police Department, Santa Fe Police and Sheriff’s offices, Children, Youth and Family Department, State District Attorney’s offices, and the New Mexico Homeland Security Department.
Media Contact: Michael Hall, executive director, NMSC (505) 277-3494; e-mail: nmsencom@unm.edu
Posted by bhendrix at January 16, 2009 04:05 PM