The most common technologies and services procured across states and localities in August were security systems, surveillance, CCTV and other camera systems and fire alarm and alerting systems. The word cloud below provides a visual interpretation of key-term frequency.

• Security System: 20 solicitations
• Surveillance and Camera systems: 12 solicitations
• Fire Alarm or Alerting Systems: 12 solicitations

After a slow spring and early summer, there was a significant increase in the number of solicitations released for justice and public safety technologies in August. Despite the large influx of RFPs, there were very few technological trends across the states. Solicitations ran the gamut from Florida’s RFP for an automated fingerprint-based applicant processing system, Spotsylvania County, Virginia’s RFP for a new 800MHz radio system, to Los Angeles County’s offender monitoring system RFP.

Several radio system and consultant solicitations were also released, though this was expected given the looming narrowbanding deadline. Arkansas’ Garland County and the city of Hot Springs released a rebid request for qualifications (RFQ) for a public safety radio communications system needs assessment after the original solicitation was canceled. Hot Springs was not the only location to release and then cancel a solicitation for a radio-related project. The Colorado Department of Public Safety released a solicitation for narrowband base station parts that was canceled on August 13 due to inadequate and ambiguous specifications. At this point, the state plans to release a new solicitation or possibly use a statewide price agreement to procure the products.

Many of the other solicitations in August seemed to be related to courts and corrections technologies. Despite the fact that Los Angeles County’s offender management system project moved forward, WSCA’s electronic monitoring and GPS project spent another month on hold as the original solicitation released in April is still being redrafted. Solano County, Calif., released a solicitation for its inmate telephone system. Massachusetts made a decision to rebid its own statewide inmate telephone system, and hopes to release a solicitation in October.

The budget cycle that began July 1, 2012, seems to have spurred departments to make decisions on all sorts of projects. In some cases, decisions were made to cancel projects; while in other cases, decisions were made to perform the work in house. After releasing a request for information (RFI), many purchasing entities decided to create systems in house, either due to the prohibitive costs of purchasing an outside system or because it was determined that no single vendor could provide the required solution. 

New York state decided to use a prescription drug monitoring program system developed in house rather than releasing a solicitation, and Delaware is leaning toward moving its laboratory information management system in house as well after results of an RFI were not what the state was hoping for. Still, other counties and states made the decision to sole source their projects like Kentucky did with its AFIS project after determining that only the current vendor would be able to provide a system that would work with the state’s outdated backend system, which cannot be updated due to budget constraints.

Analyst’s Take

As things begin to move forward again, it would behoove vendors to check in on projects that may have been put on hold until this new budget cycle. As always, contacting the using departments at the earliest point possible will benefit vendors who can show interest in the project and share their expertise. 

With the narrowbanding deadline moving closer, states and localities are under extreme pressure to develop working systems or, at the very least, a plan in the next few months. In some cases, it seems as though this has caused some municipalities to jump the gun and release solicitations for projects before they are fully ready. Kentucky experienced problems with its next generation 911 system solicitation, and after receiving two non-responsive proposals, was forced to cancel the solicitation. The state is currently reevaluating the project.

It is important for purchasing offices to work closely with the using departments to ensure that the final solicitation covers all necessary requirements and clearly explains what the locality is seeking from vendors. Likewise, vendors should take every advantage when they know about a project prior to a solicitation release to work with and assist purchasing departments in determining specifications. They should also use the question and answer period to ensure that they not only meet all of the technical requirements, but that they understand the bureaucratic requirements as well.

The state of Oregon recently announced that probation and parole officers will have access to a new tool developed by the Oregon Department of Corrections and the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, called the Public Safety Checklist (PSC). The PSC is an actuarial tool developed to help judges, prosecutors, parole boards and others involved in the legal system determine the likelihood of offenders committing a new crime if/when they are released on parole. The model is similar to those used by insurance companies to determine the risk in insuring individuals. 

Currently, the state is using a system called the Oregon Case Management System (OCMS), which was developed in the late 1970s to determine the risk of a paroled or released offender re-offending within three years of their release.

The new PSC system utilizes data from 2000-2005 (applied to and validated by 350,000 Oregonian felony offenders from 1980 to present) and predicative factors to classify offenders as being at high, medium or low risk to re-offend. Some of the information factored into the score includes demographic data such as age and gender, as well as criminal history such as how old an individual was when they were first arrested, number and type of previous crimes, and previous incarcerations. Fifteen factors go into determining a person’s risk, and according to studies that have been completed on the new tool, it is accurate 78 percent of the time, which is better than the 63 percent accuracy rate of the OCMS.

Analyst’s Take:

While establishing more accurate measurements of recidivism is certainly interesting, and has the potential to be highly useful to those involved in sentencing and release programs, it is by no means perfect. One of the most important limitations is that the system only takes into account previous crimes in Oregon and does not have the ability to consider crimes committed in other jurisdictions. Also, because a large portion of the information is taken from an individual’s previous arrest history, the system cannot predict recidivism rates for first-time offenders.

Legal issues also need to be considered, such as when the information can be used (as some of it can be considered one sided). There is also a risk of complacency among judges and parole boards, in which they do not fully review an individual’s case and simply use the statistics to determine how severely he or she should be punished. That said, since Oregon is already using a statistical tool, the state has worked hard to ensure the new system is accurate and far better than the older system.

This emerging technology has the potential to massively impact correctional systems around the country. As inmate populations continue to grow and crowding becomes an issue, more prisons are releasing non-violent offenders early, either under strict probation or on electronic monitoring bracelets. Systems like the PSC could help determine which offenders should be released and how they should be monitored. Corrections-focused vendors, particularly those involved in electronic monitoring, should keep a close eye on this type of system as it has the potential to indicate how many offenders are likely to be released on electronic monitoring systems, which may serve as a more accurate predictor of contract size. 

While many states currently utilize systems developed in house to assess inmates’ likelihood of re-offending, it would behoove vendors to begin developing integratable systems that can be used by multiple states and agencies. Vendors who currently provide other types of actuarial risk assessments should be willing to consider corrections departments as potential clients. Through the integration of these individual state systems, related parties will receive a more holistic view of an offender’s background and be able to make more informed decisions based on their past behavior.

For more information on corrections technologies, view the Corrections Term Contracts report released by Deltek last month!

• Costs for NIST 800-37 implementation (53B, row 7);
• Costs for annual FISMA testing (53B, row 9);
• Costs for network penetration testing activities (53B, row 10);
• Security awareness training costs (53B, row 11); and
• Security training costs for employees with significant security responsibilities (53B, row 12).

1. The number of government FTEs included in costs for each row above (i.e. NIST 800-37, etc.); and
2. The number of contractor FTEs included in costs for each row above.