| Title: | Using Open-Source Technology to Enhance Post-Release Service and Supervision |
| Authors: | Jim Lucht, The Providence Plan and Nancy LaVigne, The Urban Institute |
| Date/Time: | Tuesday, September 23 ~ 1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. |
| Abstract: | "The Providence Plan and The Urban Institute have recently received funding from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to develop a geospatial application designed to help corrections, public safety, and social service agencies better supervise and assist returning prisoners. In the proposed project, The Providence Plan will design a Web-based tool that will enable users to conduct specialized queries of the locations of released prisoners, map those results at the address level, and then overlay the results with additional spatially-enabled datasets, such as support services for former prisoners. The Urban Institute will oversee the evaluation, process documentation, and dissemination activities. The two organizations have worked together for over 10 years on numerous projects, including the Institute's Prisoner Reentry Mapping Network and National Neighborhood Indicator Partnership. By using open-source software - MySQL, Ruby on Rails, and Google Maps - The Providence Plan will build a tool that can be replicated by other communities with minimal start-up costs and no need for an ongoing GIS technical support. As a Web-based application with a familiar architecture (Google Maps), the tool will have a more user-friendly interface and lower bandwidth requirements than typical GIS applications. These attributes - along with easy-to-use dropdown menus - will bring state-of-the-art mapping technology to nontraditional users operating at a variety of workstations - desktop computers, laptops, and handhelds. The Urban Institute's evaluation will include quantitative data from user web logs and qualitative data obtained through user focus groups and one-on-one interviews. The evaluation will serve to document the considerations that go into employing the application for community supervision and service provision purposes, which will help to inform the larger criminal justice field on the potential value and use of spatial-analytic tool. Deliverables will include a final report, a technical manual to support replication by other communities and a research brief for publication in practitioner-oriented journals. The Rhode Island Department of Corrections, Department of Children, Youth, and Families, Providence Police Department, and the Family Life Center of Rhode Island will be the initial users of the tool. Family Life is a nonprofit that helps ex-offenders and their families by providing long-term case management services starting prior to release from pr |
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