On February 4, 2013, Odyssey was deployed to the St. Joseph County courts having criminal jurisdiction.  On the heels of that deployment, Odyssey Supervision was deployed to the St. Joseph County Adult Probation Department, Drug Court and Alcohol & Drug Program on February 27th, becoming the 30^th probation department in the state to begin using the application.  Odyssey has now been deployed to 151 courts located in 45 counties.

E-filing of criminal case information was one of the immediate benefits to the users in St. Joseph county that was implemented the second week of deployment.  The St. Joseph County prosecutor’s office uses a case management system that interfaces with Odyssey.  Elkhart County prosecutor’s office uses this same system.   Following a tremendous effort by the prosecutor’s office to make the necessary changes to their software, the interface was turned on.  Since the beginning of March, over 170 criminal cases have been successfully filed in St. Joseph County.  In the last six months, over 1,600 criminal cases have been created electronically in Elkhart County.

The following excerpt from the St. Joseph County Chief Probation Officer, Jesse Carlton, illustrates the widespread benefits his department received by transitioning to Odyssey Supervision:

               “Similar to many other counties in Indiana, AR 18 resulted in a consolidation of departments in St. Joseph County.  While the decision was made to keep our Juvenile and Adult Probation departments independent, we did consolidate our Court Substance Abuse Program, Drug Court Program and Adult Probation Department all under the direction of the Adult Probation Department.  One of the biggest areas of concern during this consolidation was our record keeping systems.  Each division had different reporting requirements for IJC [Indiana Judicial Center] and different fees to collect and monitor, which resulted in different computer programs being utilized to complete these tasks.  Unfortunately for us, we were looking at several thousands of dollars to buy or several thousands of hours to build a system that would and could handle all of these different requirements.  We started compiling our requirements, looking at our daily processes and began to consider our options.  During this process, our Clerk’s office also began to look at Odyssey as an option for their future.  Once we received that information, Odyssey became another option to consider.

               We are very excited, especially from a management standpoint, to be able to gather information across the various divisions without needing to pull separate sets of data and then try to compare the information externally.  The required fields are already in the program, so we just have to get the information in there accurately.  Additionally, the functions of Odyssey line up with the new case management ideas that we are implementing based upon the IRAS [risk assessment tools], clinical impressions, etc.”

JTAC thanks all the judges and clerks involved in these deployments.  We also thank Mr. Carlton for his leadership and teamwork that helped make the St. Joseph probation deployment such a success.  Over the next few months, JTAC will continue to work with probation staff on implementing the financial aspects of Odyssey Supervision in St. Joseph County.

The training focused on searching the state’s database for all orders of protection to determine the status and relevant information regarding legal service of the orders on the respondents/defendants.  An emphasis was placed on the importance of entering the service information into the registry as soon as the service has been perfected in accordance with IC 5-2-9-6.5 (b) by the servicing agency.

All agencies were provided copies of the Protect Yourself  brochure.  The brochure was designed for victims of domestic violence and it explains, in detail, the process for getting a protective order.  It also highlights the other services that are offered by the state such as the Victim Notification, the POR on-line search of respondents/defendants, and Advocate Access (electronic petition, functionality that allows trained advocates at domestic violence agencies throughout the state to complete a petition in the POR.)  In addition, the brochure lists other online resources that are available to victims of domestic violence.

After the training, agencies reviewed their departments’ account holder lists to ensure accuracy, and updates were made as needed. 

Training in 2013 has already begun.  We welcome New Chicago Police Department and CSX Railroad Police Department as the first agencies to be trained on eCWS in 2013!

 Highlights of eCWS:

• There are now over 9,600 users of the eCWS system.
• The Central Repository contains over 5.1 million ticket records.
• Over 800,000 infraction and ordinance violations have been electronically filed from the eCWS Central Repository to JTAC’s statewide court case management system “Odyssey.”

 Did you know?

• JTAC imports ticket records into the Central Repository from agencies using alternate e-ticket systems.  To date, over 125,000 ticket records have been imported.
• JTAC exports police department ticket records to their respective police department records management systems, saving many data entry hours at the local level.  More than 114,000 ticket records have been exported to local police departments, and 1.2 million have been exported to the Indiana State Police records system.

On September 12, 2012 the Huntington County Probation Department entered its first case into Odyssey Supervision and became the 27^th probation department to begin using the software.  Huntington County Probation was able to replace their legacy case management system with Odyssey Supervision, and are benefiting from having access to a single system that holds their Probation records as well as the Clerk and court records in Huntington County.  A key feature of the Odyssey Supervision module allows probation users to have direct access to the Clerk’s financial records and the chronological case summary (CCS) of the court’s case within their Supervision record.  To date, there are over 670 active cases in Odyssey Supervision for Huntington County.

The Jackson County Probation Department was the next department to deploy Odyssey Supervision, which went live on October 10, 2012.  Jackson County was also able to replace a legacy case management system with Odyssey Supervision and is using the financial component of Odyssey in conjunction with the Supervision module.  They began collecting payments in Odyssey Supervision on November 1^st and to date have nearly 700 cases active in the application.  In January 2013, JTAC has plans to deploy a similar version of the Supervision module to the Jackson County Alcohol and Drug Program.

On December 5, 2012 Odyssey Supervision was deployed to the ElkhartCounty Probation Department in northern Indiana.  JTAC worked with three groups over the course of five days to provide hands-on training for the application and then provided two additional days of on-site support upon implementation.  As of January 1, 2013, Elkhart County Probation will discontinue use of its prior case management system and will only use Odyssey Supervision for not only adult and juvenile probation records, but to also collect probation fees.  Over 2,200 active cases have already been created in Odyssey Supervision for Elkhart County Probation!   JTAC has also provided a service to the Elkhart County Probation Department to store a copy of their legacy probation records in a read-only, searchable fashion within one of JTAC’s INcite applications called the Data Warehouse.

JTAC thanks each of the chief probation officers of these agencies, including Jon Kramer of Huntington County, Norman Phillips of Jackson County, and Bob Girard of Elkhart County, for their support and collaboration on making the transition to Odyssey Supervision a unique success in each county. 

To date, the Odyssey Supervision module has been deployed to 29 probation departments, 5 drug court programs, 5 alcohol and drug probations, and 5 probation-based home detention programs statewide.  Nineteen of these deployments occurred in 2012.  As we look forward to the New Year, plans are already in place to work with the Jackson County Alcohol and Drug Program, St. Joseph County Probation Department, and Orange County Probation Department to deploy Odyssey Supervision.

Odyssey went live in Attica City Court in Fountain County on October 15^th.  Training was conducted the week before go-live, and JTAC was on the ground the week of the 15^th providing go-live support, although the court staff adapted quickly to how Odyssey works. 

During the final week of October, the three trial courts in Knox County began using Odyssey.  Over 200,000 cases were converted from the court’s legacy case management system and are now available in Odyssey. 

JTAC deployed Odyssey to the last two courts in Allen County during the final weekend in November.  And on December 3^rd, the four trial courts in Grant County converted to Odyssey. 

JTAC has been able to provide computers, printers and bar code scanners to many of the courts implementing Odyssey, through a federal grant. 

The New Year will bring Orange and Hancock counties into the Odyssey family of courts during the first quarter of 2013.

Recently, JTAC trained the Borden Police Department (Clark County), the Southport Police Department  (Marion County), the Converse Police Department (Grant County/Miami County), and the Michigantown Police Department (Clinton County).

Each of these agencies received equipment, at no cost to the agencies, through grant funding applied for by JTAC.  Thanks to these grants, JTAC has distributed over $175,000 in equipment assistance to law enforcement agencies so far this year, and will distribute at least $100,000 more by the end of the year.

JTAC continues to work on enhancements to the eCWS program.  Currently in the pipeline is the inclusion of a Towing Record Form and the OWI Probable Cause Affidavit.  This will allow required information to be entered once and used across all forms as needed or required.  The information will also be saved in the eCWS Central Repository, allowing for easy retrieval and processing to other record systems.

Release of the forms enhancements will also incorporate numerous suggestions sent to us from officers using eCWS, and these enhancements greatly improve the eCWS ‘user’ experience.

On July 25^th the Greene County Probation Department and the Greene County Alcohol and Drug Program completed their training and began using the application.  Both agencies will be able to discontinue use of their legacy case management systems and are excited to be working under the same Odyssey framework.  Because  they are using separate components of Odyssey Supervision, the application  prevents them from seeing each other’s confidential case data; however, they do have the benefit of sharing the same Odyssey party record.  The party record concept of Odyssey allows users from both the probation department and the alcohol and drug program to access and update details pertaining to the party’s demographic and contact information.  This eliminates the need for each agency to maintain these details separately from each another.  The Greene County Probation Department will begin collecting payments and using the financial tools of Odyssey Supervision in October. 

On August 22^nd the Jennings County Probation Department  went live with Odyssey Supervision following three days of hands-on training.  And just like Greene County, they too will be able to discontinue the use of their legacy case management system, which was used primarily to track activity on only active cases.  The department will benefit tremendously by having an electronic means for tabulating data required for the probation quarterly statistics. 

JTAC congratulates and thanks the staff of all three agencies, including Greene County Chief Probation Officer, Mike Pate, Greene County Alcohol and Drug Program Director, Nicole Noel, and Jennings County Chief Probation Officer, Andrew Judd. 

In the coming months JTAC will be working with the Jackson County Probation Department to deploy Odyssey Supervision.

The LaPorte County Adult Probation Department and the LaPorte County Alcohol and Drug Services (LADS) Department began training for Odyssey Supervision on June 18^th, the go-live date for the courts and clerk.  After one day of training, the departments  went live with the application on June 19^th.  Multiple training sessions were held with the probation and LADS staff, which are located in two different locations in LaPorte and Michigan City.  Upon completion of the training, two additional days of go-live support were provided by JTAC staff.  In addition to probation, alcohol and drug cases, probation staff who work for the LaPorte County Drug Court Program are also using Odyssey Supervision to help manage their drug court cases.  To date, over 700 supervision cases have been created in Odyssey for LaPorte County.

Steve Eyrick, Chief Probation Officer for the LaPorte County Adult Probation Department, commented as to the benefits his department will receive from Odyssey Supervision.  “I anticipate that the biggest benefit is communication,” he said.  “By communication, I mean that we now will have instant access to any court appearances of our offenders in LaPorte County as well as others.  It will also increase our internal communications and efficiencies by being able to have a daily list of appointments, court hearings, etc.; each officer will know what is scheduled for that day.  Before Odyssey, court hearing lists were prepared by our secretarial staff and distributed to every officer.  We can now free our secretaries’ time to do other pressing tasks.  Officers can now schedule follow-up contacts so offenders being released from custody will not fall through the cracks.  Efficiency and communication will be the two biggest benefits to LaPorte County, and after having just consolidated, these issues are even more important.”

JTAC thanks all the judges and Clerk Spevak for their hard work toward the implementation of Odyssey.  Also, JTAC thanks Mr. Eyrick, as well as Roxann Justus, Program Coordinator for the LaPorte County Alcohol and Drug Services (LADS), for their support and teamwork approach, which helped make the Odyssey Supervision deployment in LaPorte County such a success.

In the coming months, JTAC will be working to deploy Odyssey to Elkhart County and Odyssey Supervision to Greene County and Jennings County probation departments.

The Clark County Probation Department was recently consolidated into one agency from four separate probation departments, effective January 1, 2012.  The implementation of Odyssey Supervision has encouraged a more unified operation and has helped streamline many business processes.  The four prior probation departments (now referred to as divisions) each had separate case management systems that were not shared with any of the other divisions, causing each division to still operate independently of one another.  By implementing Odyssey Supervision, all staff in each of the four divisions will have one single case management system and will have access to the same information.

Henry Ford, the Chief Probation Officer in Clark County, commented during the first week of the Odyssey Supervision implementation that “[JTAC’s] work here in Clark County is going to allow us to eliminate four separate probation systems at an eventual savings of almost $50,000 annually to the county.  Our Vision in Clark County Probation is to be the ‘model of excellence for probation and community corrections in the State of Indiana’.  Our Mission is to ‘improve the protection of the community, safety of staff, and the accountability of offenders’.  And a key way we are going to accomplish these is through implementation of research driven intervention services and by providing training to enhance our professional skills.  Odyssey Probation will take us a long way down the path of meeting these objectives.” 

JTAC thanks Mr. Ford for his superior leadership and the Clark County Probation staff for their hard work and dedication toward making the transition to Odyssey Supervision such a success.  JTAC will continue to provide support and further training in Clark County as the probation department works toward collecting payments in Odyssey Supervision in the coming months.

On June 4, LaGrange County became the 80^th county to use INcite for marriage licenses. Staff filled the last page of their traditional marriage license record book in the morning and smoothly transitioned to the INcite computer program later in the day. Clerks who use INcite no longer need to mail hard copy records of marriage to the Indiana State Department of Health for processing.

Lake and LaGrange Counties both use the Online Marriage License Application (OMLA) at http://courts.in.gov/marriage, which permits couples to begin their marriage license application online before arriving at their clerk’s counter. This saves couples and Clerk staff time when completing the application in person. To date, more than 8,900 applications initiated online have been completed and issued by the 69 counties that use the OMLA.

Marshall County plans to begin using the INcite Marriage License application on July 1.