How the State of Washington Dept of

Corrections failed to follow IT best practices

“Prison-term fix delayed 16 times”

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RolesCh. 7

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What happened too the Request For Change?

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Problem: A “software glitch” shortened the term for some prisoners and allowed their early release. Prisoners typically get “good time” credits that lead to an early release. The maximum sentence reduction allowed by law is up to 33% of a prisoner’s sentence. The software glitch allowed 58% reduction + credited hard time! This was discovered 13 years ago!

The DOC IT staff finally submitted a Change Request in 2002 to the software vendor, Sierra-Cedar. The application is called OMNI, Offender Management Network Information

Over 1,100 Washington State RCWs affect offender sentence structure, sentencing enhancements and time accounting for incarceration and community supervision, making it one of the most complex systems in the nation. Any modifications made to OMNI without a thorough understanding of the State of Washington’s correctional model and/or the functional components within OMNI would adversely affect the integrity of the system and call into question sentencing calculations. Erroneous sentencing calculations would result in offenders being released prematurely, thereby compromising programming and rehabilitation efforts, or offenders being remanded to DOC custody beyond their legally required sentence, thereby denying them their rightful liberty. In either case, liability would fall squarely on DOC for failing to meet legislative mandates and court orders.

“Hard time” and “Sentence enhancement”If the conviction includes a weapon like a gun or knife

(“armed robbery”), the sentence will have added time called an enhancement.

The enhancement must be served as “hard time” or time never reduced by good behavior.

The bug in OMNI not only over-credited good behavior but mistakenly credited hard time or enhanced sentences.

Who is at fault? Sierra-Cedar? Dept of Corrections?

Who is Sierra-Cedar (formerly Sierra Systems)?

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What is OMNI?

?“As of August 2008 the Department of Corrections (DOC) is directing access to the Felony Offender Reporting System (FORS) (also known as the Offender Based Tracking System (OBTS)) through the Offender Management Network Information (OMNI) web-based system.”

* Note: the FORS system ran on an old main frame computer

"The successful implementation of OMNI is a critical milestone in our strategic plan to improve public safety for Washington's citizens," said Melanie Roberts, Deputy Secretary of Administrative Services for DOC. "We are delighted to be working with a private sector partner who has our complete confidence."

“The contract value is not to exceed US $14.5 million. Sierra Systems will assume full responsibility for the successful execution of the project including project management, specifications, design, and development.”

Managing Information for Safer Communities

March 23, 2007

The Offender Management Network Information (OMNI) system is a new web-based, offender tracking system being developed by the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC).OMNI is expected to improve DOC’s ability to manage offenders as they progress thorough the correctional system by providing efficient, easy access to comprehensive information about an offender's:

Confinement status Rehabilitation programming Treatment Sentencing Movement Discipline Community supervision

Managing Information for Safer Communities

What is OMNI?

Chronos Notifications 3.1 Shared Services 3.1 Records Synchronization 3.1 Interfaces

Managing Information for Safer Communities

OMNI Components - Release 3.1

Managing Information for Safer Communities

OMNI Components - Release 3.2

Sentence Structure and Time Accounting 3.2 Records Case Management and Field Movement Bed Capacity Management and Prison Movement Prison Discipline Field Discipline Prison Custody and Facility Plan 3.2 Shared Services 3.2 Interfaces

Is there an SLA? Service Level Agreement?

A service-level agreement (SLA) is simply a document describing the level of service expected by a customer from a supplier, laying out the metrics by which that service is measured, and the remedies or penalties, if any, should the agreed-upon levels not be achieved. Usually, SLAs are between companies and external suppliers, but they may also be between two departments within a company.

There should be an SLA between the DOC and the DOC’s IT department and an SLA between the DOC and Sierra-Cedar, the software vendor. Such an SLA is not public information.

Problem root cause: Failure to use IT Best Practices. Additional cause of this failure: No enforceable Service Level Agreement between the DOC and the DOC’s IT department. ITIL to the rescue! DOC IT staff should be in this class!

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January 5th memo re: correcting the problem

doc-staff-memo-omni-solution.pdfClick the icon to read the memo:

This is a software maintenance memo. The DOC purchased software rather than a service