House Journal: Page 57: Wednesday, January 10, 1996

There is another area in which we've also made positive strides.
 I'm pleased to report our progress in responding to the
recommendations of our Domestic Abuse Task Force.  Under the
leadership of many judges, and with the help of Jennifer Juhler,
our domestic abuse intervention coordinator, local community
domestic abuse coalitions have been created around the state. 
The purpose of the coalitions is to promote a community response
to the problem of domestic abuse.  We have also sponsored
domestic abuse round table discussions in all of our judicial
districts.   We've been working closely with the Department of
Public Safety to create a statewide domestic abuse registry. 
The registry will provide law enforcement officers around the
state with the most current information on protective orders.

We're making other substantial advances with the help of
technology.
Our court computer system, the Iowa Court Information System or
ICIS, is making us more efficient and effective.  It also serves
the needs of and assists other government departments.  For
example:

-We're sending criminal disposition data to the Department of
Public Safety and the Department of Corrections through our
network.
-In a few months, we'll be linked by computer with the
Department of Transportation so it can get traffic and criminal
case information from the courts electronically.

-And we've developed a new program to assist county treasurers
to stop the renewal of vehicle registration of persons who have
unpaid fines.

Technology also can help relieve the record storage problems of
count,v courthouses.  Most of lowa's courthouses are bursting at
the seams with old records.   Records are stacked from floor to
ceiling, piled in attics and basements, and crammed in garages
and storage buildings.  Counties are simply running out of
space.  Records stored in poor conditions are deteriorating
quickly.  Imaging technology may be one solution to this
problem.  We decided to find out.

Last March, the Sac County clerk's office, with the help of many
volunteers, started "purging" court files.  Purging means
removing from a file, and destroying, records which have no
legal value.  Once this was finished, the files were ready to be
reproduced.  A document imaging company was hired to reproduce
the records.  Each document was placed, one at a time, through a
scanner.  An exact reproduction was automatically stored on a
compact disc.  The discs look like those sold in music stores.  
The results of this six-month project are astonishing! Fifty
years of court records that filled sixty-five file drawers are
now stored on eleven four-inch Discs.

Technology can also help us manage the flood of criminal cases. 
Often in some of our high-volume courts, the system is so
clogged that judges have little choice but to make decisions
about criminal defendants based upon incomplete information.  
Polk County district associate court is developing an automated
case management system to solve this problem.  This system will
serve as a prototype for courts around the state.  This system
will link, by computer, judges, the county attorneys office, the
jail, the public defender's office, the department of
correctional services, and the clerk's office.  Once this is
ready, everyone on the network will have instant access to
information about criminal defendants.  That's the way it ought
to be.

Iowa General Assembly

Index: House Journal (76th General Assembly: Session 2)

© 1996 Cornell College and League of Women Voters of Iowa

Comments? hjourn@legis.iowa.gov.

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