In a request for information (RFI) released June 27, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Records and Identification Bureau (RIB) is seeking information from vendors capable of providing it with an “operationally proven,” commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) web-based warrant system that includes server hardware, software, and operations and maintenance services. The solution must interface with existing internal and external systems and their databases. Among the takeaways:
- Los Angeles County covers 4,083 square miles and has more than 10 million residents; the sheriff’s department serves about 5 million of these residents across roughly 3,157 square miles. Staffed by roughly 19,000 employees, the department is among the nation’s largest law enforcement agencies. The existing Los Angeles County Warrant System (CWS) was implemented in 1988 and replaced the department’s legacy Automated Want Warrant System, with a focus on automating primary warrant and want business across county courts and law enforcement, via its Information Monitoring System, Common Business Oriented Language (COBOL) and Assembler Techniques. To align with “national best practices and initiatives” on automating processes for warrants and wants, the CWS supports primary functions of issuance, service, update, recall query and reporting; all except reporting happen in real time or near real time.
- Any solution must be capable of automating the issuing, search and retrieval, service, maintenance, and reporting of arrest warrants and wants for questioning among the county’s assorted trial and traffic courts and law enforcement agencies. Vendors of interest, according to the RFI, are those capable of providing a turnkey solution with 24/7 operations and maintenance support for hardware and software as part of any maintenance pact. Vendors that want to take part in the demonstration must supply relevant production information. The RFI is intended for the county to learn as much as possible about current and future solution technology trends; such knowledge is intended to facilitate its ability to write the requirements for any future procurement.
- The existing CWS has a “different technical approach” than automation. It centrally stores, reports and manages nearly 2 million warrants and wants for all law enforcement in the county, serving as a clearinghouse or repository for these warrants. The new system must provide authorized user abilities including letting authorized external law enforcement agencies access want and warrant details via an external portal; providing a detailed report on all “also-known-as” or AKAs from a warrant or want; the ability to search via aliases and AKAs; and creating an audit trail log that tracks users who accessed a record, when and from what agency, and what they did. The solution must also create reports on warrant details for individual or multiple warrants or wants, must be able to create maps of a warrant or want location, must manually export data and must support on-prem and cloud-based Criminal Justice Information Services-compliant environments.
- Responses are due by 3 p.m. July 18 and will be reviewed by the department, potentially leading to further research and analysis. The department cautions this is an RFI only, and not a solicitation; however, information received via the RFI may be used to create a request for proposals, an invitation for bids or another form of solicitation. Respondents will be notified of a future solicitation and may be invited to deliver a noncompetitive presentation of their products, for information-gathering only with any demos done on-site. Any such presentation should be no longer than 2.5 hours.
