The SRFERS Mission
The transient nature of terrorists and other criminals often makes tracking these individuals a difficult task for law enforcement agencies. When officers have the information they need about criminals’ identities and activities, they are better equipped to keep the American public safe. The SRFERS project is targeting new ways to accomplish this. By breaking down political and technical barriers, SRFERS aims to get our officers the right information they need at the right time. |
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“I am in full favor of this proposal and its access to our investigators. We handle kidnappings, fugitives, amber alerts, jail escapes, cargo thefts, organized crimes, etc. Knowing the activities and associates will allow us to track their activities and locate missing children. We desperately need access to this technology.” Investigator, Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department |
Overview
Effectively sharing critical information among public safety agencies is necessary to protect the American public against terrorism and all other criminal acts that threaten our country’s safety. In order to share information in the most efficient manner possible it’s necessary for federal, local and state public safety agencies to leverage existing efforts; and to build on, not reinvent, info sharing activities that are currently underway.
To demonstrate the effectiveness of this concept, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have partnered to fund the ARJIS-SRFERS initiative. The ultimate goal of SRFERS is to implement new info sharing capabilities across state lines by developing a national toolkit. The toolkit serves as a blueprint for agencies when enhancing, building, or linking systems, in order to leverage existing infrastructure, lessons learned, and best practices of existing applications.
Interstate booking photo exchange
| “Being able to obtain those (booking photos) quickly would greatly improve our efficiency. For example, I am currently attempting to locate an Arizona fugitive of which I have not been able to obtain a photo for. This makes our job more difficult” Detective Russell Bristol, San Diego Police Department - Special Investigations Unit |
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During the first Phase of the SRFERS project, ARJIS conducted an assessment of current law enforcement needs to identify information that officers needed but did not have access to. The results of the assessment indicated that immediate access to out-of-state photos would enhance officer safety, increase efficiency, and save time and resources.
Since criminals are a transient population, it is difficult to identify them when they travel across state lines. The proximity and amount of criminal activity between Southern California and Phoenix, AZ suggested that these locations would be ideal for implementing interstate booking photo exchange. ARJIS in San Diego County collaborated with Nlets and Maricopa County, ICJIS to develop re-usable technical specifications for booking data and photo sharing across state lines. Implementing these capabilities proved to be extremely beneficial. SRFERS assisted officers in San Diego and Phoenix with a variety of cases, including missing persons, murders, and jail escapees.
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“I tested SRFERS on one of my cases and helped another detective with one of his cases. He said he had a missing person report with a guy that was supposed to be going to AZ. I checked him in SRFERS and found out that he had recently been arrested in AZ. So one missing person report closed, case solved.” Detective John Pearsley, El Cajon Police Department |
Interstate Driver License Photos
After the successful booking photo pilot, it was determined that access to additional photos, including out of state drivers license photos, would help law enforcement officers across the country. SRFERS formed a partnership with the Nlets Interstate Sharing of Photos (NISP) project to initiate interstate driver license photo exchange. With leadership and direction from the NISP and SRFERS projects, states across the nation are successfully implementing interstate DL photo exchange capabilities. It is anticipated that 20 states will be able to successfully share photos across state lines over the next couple of years.
“The State of Oregon, as with many States, struggles with finding funding for special projects and consequently seeks out partnerships with other agencies to support info sharing initiatives. Oregon and SRFERS have begun an extremely successful partnership dealing with the sharing of Drivers License Photos. With SRFERS support Oregon became the first state in the nation to operationally begin sharing these photos through the NLETS system. SRFERS has been the catalysis for Oregon's success in this area.” Terry O'Connell, Director of Criminal Justice Information Services (LEDS) Oregon State Police
Interstate Corrections Photos
“The fact that the average street cop and investigator have access is huge” Rick Abend, Supervisory Deportation Officer – Immigration Customs Enforcement
Frequently, criminals are repeat offenders who have been arrested and detained numerous times. Statistics show that suspects who have been previously incarcerated come into contact with law enforcement more often than the general public. Oftentimes corrections photos of criminals are more up to date and may resemble offenders more than driver license photos. Access to these photos would be extremely beneficial in cases such as jail escapes and wanted persons.
To address the need for officers to have access to these photos, SRFERS and NISP are piloting an interstate corrections photo sharing project. The participants in this project have been identified as North Carolina and Oregon, two states considered to be highly progressive with regards to information sharing.
LPR Data
The San Diego SRFERS application provides access to license plate reader data from the United States international border crossings. The data, which originates from US Customs and Border Patrol, includes info such as: license plate numbers of vehicles leaving and entering the United States from Mexico and Canada, the port of entry location, and the date and time that the vehicle has crossed the border. This component of the SRFERS application has been extremely well received by officers in the San Diego region and has helped officers save time on numerous investigations.
"I just wanted to re-emphasize how helpful that ARJIS site was for the lane crossing and the response time for that. I would have to wait 2-3 weeks to get the same info. I am receiving instantly. Thanks again."
"The system worked without a flaw. I received the information I needed within seconds. This is a dramatic improvement over the old system, where a Task Force officer would have to be contacted to obtain that same information. The turn around time under the old method usually took several days, and up to a week depending on that officer's case load." Detective Brett Rhoades, Chula Vista Police Department
TOOLKIT
Technical standards and policy issues among federal, state and local public safety agencies are being addressed by the SRFERS toolkit. The toolkit provides a national standardized model to new regions/states to allow a fast and effective way to initiate data sharing. All of the documentation and artifacts produced from the SRFERS and NISP project is available via the SREFRS toolkit which includes, but is not limited to:
- Model information sharing agreements
- Privacy Impact Assessments
- State Implementation plans
- Technical specifications
- User and technical assessment templates
- Technical and policy documentation
- Architectural models