The Supreme Court is proud to have a single environment for hosting its web-based applications—Indiana Courts Information Technology Extranet (INcite). The Jan/Feb 2011 “INcite a Framework for Innovation” Indiana Court Times article compared the applications in INcite to houses in a planned community with rules about paint color, building materials, and mailbox height. Since 2011, the community has continued to grow. An update to the expanding neighborhood called INcite is due.
View a timeline of key events in INcite development
The Supreme Court strives to improve the quality of case data, as well as data accuracy and completeness of court records. Its goal is to provide a solid foundation of data for judges, prosecutors, probation officers, policy makers, and the public.
The Supreme Court first started INcite in 2005 as a single application designed for courts to submit driving violations electronically to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV), ending years of hard copy submissions by U.S. Mail to the BMV, where the data was keypunched in. Over the years, it has grown to more than thirty-five applications that allow 35,000 users in federal, state, and local agencies to share information. The applications are used by trial courts, clerks, probation officers, law enforcement, state and federal agencies, and victim advocates.
Because INcite facilitates the sharing and exchanging of data among justice-related offices and state agencies, it has security features like data encryption and authentication to ensure only authorized users can see and use data. Sharing data increases accuracy in the different applications. The data exchanged via INcite includes reporting statistics or convictions, tracking a probationer’s progress, and downloading a jury list.
New houses in the INcite neighborhood
Offender management
The Offender Management System application works hand-in-hand with three other INcite applications: Risk Assessment, Presentence Investigation Reports, and Abstract of Judgment. This provides a single location for access to the demographic information, social and criminal history of adult offenders, and information regarding the likelihood of the offender to reoffend. In addition, the Offender Management System indicates if DNA results have been processed by the Indiana State Police. Department of Correction, Probation, and Community Corrections utilize the tools provided through INcite as required by statutes, court rules, and agency policies. Policy makers studying and tracking the impact of the criminal code reform in Indiana utilize the Offender Management System as their primary data source.
For juvenile offenders, INcite provides tools to probation officers and the Department of Correction such as the Risk Assessment application and Juvenile Reports which is comparable to the Presentence Investigation Reports for adults. The Juvenile Reports include three components: preliminary inquiry, predispositional report, and a modification report.
Searching across case management systems
CMS Search is an application that allows users to search for case information in multiple case management systems. Currently CMS Search searches both Odyssey and QUEST.
Guardianship registry
The Guardianship Registry was piloted in 4 counties, has expanded to 18, and is implemented strictly on a voluntary basis. The Registry was developed to provide courts and law enforcement with better oversight on guardianships and to enhance the protection of vulnerable adults. This application allows for guardian registry for adults or minors on a permanent or temporary basis.
public.courts.in.gov is a portal for the public to access the non-confidential information in guardianship cases. On May 30, 2014, a speaking delegation from Indiana, led by Fountain Circuit Court Judge Susan Orr Henderson and Lake Superior Court Judge Diane Kavadias Schneider, presented the development of the Guardianship Registry at the World Congress on Adult Guardianship in Washington, DC. As of August 21, 2015, there are 1,555 active cases in the registry.
Child support enforcement
The Title IV-D Writ/Warrant Registry is a unique partnership with the Child Support Bureau to help in searching the civil side of case warrants and writs for parents who fail to pay child support. As a central repository, prosecutors and law enforcement officers can look in the Registry for data in the counties using the application.
INcite has not just saved time and money, it’s also improved public safety and enhanced Hoosiers’ access to justice.