The Hackathon, whose name is a combination of "Hacking" and "Marathon," took place on November 20 and 21, 2014. It was a virtual event aimed at using technology to improve workflow for parole officers (i.e. creating cool and innovative tools and applications).
Organizers of the event took to GCconnex to encourage CSC employees within the field of offender case management to submit their ideas for tools and applications that would help make their jobs a lot easier. They were encouraged to dream, and dream big, with the potential for one or more of the ideas to actually make its way to production and eventually, desktops and tablets across the country.
We are happy to share that one of those ideas – the Parole Officer Dashboard, or POD - has been made into an application that is in the testing phase! Approximately sixty parole officers across the country are conducting “user acceptance” testing of the POD to see how it works for them, and where improvements can be made. Their feedback has and will continue to be integrated into the application so that it is the best possible tool for them.
What is the POD? Simply put, the application provides easy access to information relating to an offender’s:
Basic profile information
Alerts / Flags / Needs
Sentence Length / Countdown
Sentence Timeline
Supervision Information
List of Contacts
List of Owned Vehicles
Address Information
Employment History
Urine Test History
Travel Permits
Having this application will help parole officers by providing them with up to date information about an offender in one easy to access location on their tablets.
The most remarkable part of this initiative is that it was done completely from the grassroots up. The Hackathon and its resulting application were dreamed up by CSC employees who wanted to make a difference. Their efforts have created a tool that will help parole officers, and that is a true success.