The Jail Information System (JIS) was developed through a grant to the [[AJI|American Justice Institute]] (AJI) from the [[U.S. Department of Justice]], [[LEAA|Law Enforcement Assistance Administration]] (LEAA), Office of Criminal Justice Programs" The development of JIS was an outgrowth of the need perceived during AJI's LEAA-funded Jail Overcrowding/Pretrial Detainee Program for an automated booking, inmate accounting, and jail population management information system that would store in a single data base all offender transactions from booking through inmate custody and pretrial release management. As such, the system was designed to meet the information needs of jails (and pretrial release units) for a defendant-based, "subject-in-process" system that would track individuals from booking at the jail through pre- and post-trial incarceration (or pretrial release). It is a computer-based inmate/defendant record system designed to replace current manual inmate accounting procedures that have proven to be totally inadequate to handle (1) the volume and complexity of cases/defendants entering the criminal justice system at the point of booking, (2) the number of inmate transactions occurring during incarceration, and (3) the information and accounting requirements of pretrial release units in determining eligibility for release and subsequent tracking in the system. The computer software for the Jail Information System was developed by the [[INSLAW|Institute for Law and Social Research]], Inc. (INSLAW), under contract from the American Justice Institute, as an expansion of the widely-used [[PROMIS]] information system previously developed by INSLAW. The system design for JIS was based upon the information requirements analyses for booking, inmate accounting, and jail population management conducted by the six jurisdictions that served as pilot sites for system implementation: - Multnomah County (Portland), Oregon - Santa Cruz County, California - Pima County (Tucson), Arizona - Jefferson County (Louisville), Kentucky - Orange County (Orlando), Florida - Middlesex County (New Brunswick), New Jersey ## Operation This software has been run on a variety of mini and mainframe computers and is compatible with 74 ANS COBOL. In addition, JIS system users are not limited to the design described in this document. The software provides a procedure known as "tailoring". Using an interactive program, an agency can add, delete, or modify data elements or transactions without reprogramming. The model JIS system serves as the starting point for this tailoring.