This blog is originally from, The Townsend Report.
SAVIN is now VSS (Victim Services Suite), and Infostrat is now SylogistGov Inc.
In July 2016, South Dakota rolled out a fully statewide SAVIN notification system using the solution from InfoStrat.
The SAVIN solution provides victims with timely and accurate notifications of changes to offender custody and case status. Built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, it leverages the best of breed technology which is regularly upgraded by Microsoft. It provides a wide range of tools for administrators including ad hoc reporting and query development, workflow management, internal alerting, integration with Microsoft Office, role-based security, and many other standard features.
The SAVIN solution can be implemented on premise or in the Microsoft cloud. And it can be implemented as a stand-alone solution for a specific justice organization (Corrections Department, Jail, Court, Prosecutor, etc.) or as a complete statewide solution including data from multiple justice organizations.
Highlights of the South Dakota implementation include:
Exclusive use of the NIEM Standard SAVIN data exchange for all interfaces InfoStrat implemented the SAVIN SSP for all interfaces, which include Court, Prosecutor, Law Enforcement, Jail and Corrections data sources. This provides a single code base for all exchanges, enabling the application of both source specific and global business rules for all incoming data. This also means that all data exchanges are transmitted using web services, so the incoming data is passed at the time of data entry in the source systems.
Proxy Victim Registration for Law Enforcement and State’s Attorney staff Law enforcement and state prosecutors can register victims for notification for multiple scenarios: direct registration, third party registration (for victims in temporary shelters), and full proxy (where the victim advocate would receive notification to forward to the victim for full anonymity).
Notification only for specific crimes To ensure that notification resources are used effectively, notification services are limited to offenders who commit more serious crimes. Offenders who commit non-violent crimes do not even appear on the portal for registration. This also is extended to notification about court events; only cases involving SAVIN reportable charges are included for notification.
Expanded notification options for victims State’s Attorney staff confirm self-registered victims and can conduct proxy registration for victims. Victims are provided full set of notification options as to how they can be notified—phone, email, text message, letter—and are eligible for notification of all events. Individuals can also register as interested parties, but are limited to email notification and for a subset of events. The solution also relegates victims to interested party status after the sentence has been served. The person will still receive general notifications about the offender, should there be any events that follow the offender’s release.
Full case updates on changes to case. Court events are defined as immediate or update events. Immediate events result in an immediate notification; update events result in a full email update of case activities at the end of the day. This keeps victims apprised of case actions without receiving a large number of notifications in a short period of time.
Law Enforcement portal allows all jails to participate A law enforcement portal provides all sheriff and police offices to add and update offender data even if their jail management system is offline or has not yet integrated. Quality controls are in place to prevent jails from updating offenders currently in custody in another facility.
South Dakota also took advantage of many of the standard features of the SAVIN solution and of Dynamics CRM:
Single record per Offender, so all data updates one record and victims need only sign up once.
Annual follow up of victim data to ensure contact information remains accurate.
Categorized notification to allow variation of the recall schema based on urgency of the event.
Notification Governor, which monitors for probably erroneous bulk data changes and prevents large numbers of erroneous notifications.
Notification History, so Administrators can view all notifications provided to a specific registrant, including the text of all messages provided.
Never search again logic, which allows victims to immediately view status on offenders for whom they are registered.
Personalized calls to victims for truly urgent events
Manual initiation of notification for unexpected events
Handling for backdated events, to provide a means to explain late notifications from late arriving data.
Self-Service Administration and Configuration
