By: Joli Shumpert, Product Implementation Specialist
With jail administrators surveying inmate populations daily, weekly, monthly, and annually on a whole host of topics including programming, medical needs, discipline measures, etc., the amount of data stored within your software system can quickly become overwhelming. Add to that the specific data attached to each inmate—in addition to the data attached to your entire population and you have a myriad of valuable pieces of information—information that is critical to determining programming, resources, and more. Correctional software must allow for ease of data aggregation and collaboration to enhance efficiencies and transparencies in the facility and beyond. Below are just a few ways using streamlined correctional software with ease of data extraction, visibility, and sharing can help you run a more efficient jail.
- Access Data Fast for Real-time Monitoring and Reporting: With data at your fingertips, you have an overview of day-to-day workings within the jail, but also broader, more strategic oversight. Administrators and supervisors can monitor various aspects of the correctional facility in real-time. This includes tracking inmate movements, incidents, and even resource consumption. Real-time reporting can help identify and address issues promptly. In addition, supervisors can see queues of tasks and more easily monitor their direct reports.
- Produce Easily Digestible Reports and Dashboards for Faster, Data-Driven Decisions: equivant Corrections software allows jail administrators to build already-created or customized reports and dashboards quickly and easily. Color options and graph types make the data easy to visualize and consume. Jail professionals no longer have to download the data and upload it to a different program in order to create visually appealing and compelling reports; extrapolating it right from the software is much more efficient. Researchers can also use this data to study trends, conduct evaluations of programs, and draw other conclusions. In addition, when more decision makers can understand the data quickly, decisions can be made that much faster.
- Streamlined Information Sharing Reduces Data Silos, Enhances Transparency: Reports and dashboards can easily be shared among and between both internal and external criminal justice stakeholders with a click of a button. Access to the information needed, when it is needed, means enhanced transparency and fast-tracking data-driven policy making. Delays caused by requesting and waiting for data are eliminated leading to quicker decisions, seamless collaboration, and faster operational and programmatic improvements.
Correctional software that provides pertinent, easily digestible, and shareable data in real time enhances efficiencies and transparencies throughout the facility and beyond. This means better care for the inmate population, faster programmatic and rehabilitation reforms, and quicker, more strategic decision-making. If you’d like to start a discussion about how to optimize your facility’s operations with better software, please contact us today.
