CPI
Robust Information-Sharing for Law Enforcement

Criminal justice information has unlocked new opportunities for law enforcement agencies and criminal justice practitioners across the U.S. to ensure public safety and drive life and death decisions. This information today is just seconds away and can be accessed in real time to meet the unique needs of professionals in these fields. Thanks to Computer Projects of Illinois’ modern and sophisticated software package that connects data sources within a state or nation into a single source of truth, viewable by the officers or the right user in real time for the intended purpose. While the national information exchange model is shifting to an XML standard for exchanging data in the criminal justice space, Computer Projects of Illinois (CPI) has been instrumental in bridging the knowledge gap with products powered by best-of-breed ideas, which can configure business rules and other software requirements with rapid implementation and support.

With years of experience in developing message processing information systems for law enforcement, CPI focuses on reliable information flow. Serving the niche market of criminal justice with its expertise in software development, CPI’s OpenFox is an information broker that serves as a data hub for law enforcement and criminal justice, which sits at the heart of the state-wide system. OpenFox acts as a server to allow the seamless flow of information between various systems. The product set validates credentials and services and serves as a gatekeeper to ensure that information is only accessible to authorized personnel. Bringing in a combination of power, ease of use, and information security, the OpenFox product range offers a long-term log that is an effective answer to the misuse of privacy considerations. It keeps a record of all the data that is run through the software so that auditors can check its usage. OpenFox operates as a universal translator, which ensures that its endpoints are loosely coupled to each other, but well-connected to a central hub. The hub functions as a Rosetta stone that translates information from different sources and presents it to the listening device in a consumable format.

CPI specializes in creating highly configurable and customizable modified off-the-shelf (MOTS) products for each client, with modifications that streamline operations.

We utilize a broader set of innovation and ideas to create product sets have been tried and tested in the real world

“We utilize a broader set of innovation and ideas to create product sets have been tried and tested in the real world,” states Kevin Sawatzky, CEO of CPI.

CPI is currently hosting several criminal justice systems from their tier III data center. Organizations are shifting from legacy systems to managed services-based environments that avoid tie-ups with state IT systems, which may display rigid pre-requisites. Purchasing a service from a vendor like CPI ends organizational reliance on state IT services while ensuring complete ownership and control over the systems. The budgetary fee makes the costs more predictable while simultaneously preventing IT consolidation.

While the National Crime Information Center implemented a new exchange model, initiatives were undertaken to convert guides to XML and GDX DM. However, the inability of people to understand the vast ramifications of the project poses a significant cause for concern. Similar was the case of an organization that previously had issues with the laws being handed down and was resistant to adopt the new regulations. It was forced to act in the face of a short, immovable deadline. CPI came to their rescue at this critical juncture with its information broker system to serve as middleware. CPI created a new system from scratch by modifying its existing technology to suit customer requirements on a tight timeline. The new system that complied with new regulations went live before the deadline without any bugs.

Marching into the future, CPI is now attempting to patent its information exchange technology, which balances the organization of data with a source having a different organizational scheme at the state and national level.