Inter-organizational information sharing within the criminal justice supply chain.
Qualitative insights in technological, managerial and policy-related barriers
Master Thesis, MSC Supply Chain Management. University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
T.H.I. Sand Studentnumber: 2227649 E-mail: t.h.i.sand@student.rug.nl
Supervisor / Rijksuniversiteit Groningen C. de Blok
Co-assessor / Rijksuniversiteit Groningen A. Seepma
Supervisor / Project “Recht doen aan Slachtoffers” A.P.T.M Duffhues
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Abstract:
An optimal information exchange among supply chain partners is a prerequisite for meeting customer requirements. However, the difficulty to achieve an effective information exchange differs between each sector and supply chain. There are many different factors within each sector and supply chain that could influence the information exchange. An example is the criminal justice chain, which is a supply chain with both a high degree of unpredictability and heterogeneity of victims and suspects. The criminal justice chain partners have difficulties to take these characteristics into account to be able to achieve an accurate, complete and timely information exchange. The factors that are causing these information exchange difficulties at an inter-organizational level within the criminal justice chain need to be explored for an improvement of the information exchange.
The research question of this study is: Which factors and interrelations between these factors are causing ineffective inter-organizational information exchange within the criminal justice chain? This research is performing a single case study to explore which factors cause the ineffective information exchange within the criminal justice chain. The required data is collected via semi-structured interviews with nine criminal justice chain partners that have a direct impact on the effectiveness of the information exchange. The results of the data analysis have been compared with the framework of Yang and Maxwell (2011). This framework consists of a technological perspective, an organizational and managerial perspective, and a political and policy perspective with accompanying factors that impact the information exchange at an inter-organizational level.
The framework is based on different tests and data collections from several public supply chains. This research is performed to determine whether the framework is also applicable to the criminal justice chain, given its specific, complex and differentiating characteristics. Secondly, this study focuses on possible extensions of the framework. The interrelationships between perspectives and accompanying factors are also taken into account.
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Contents
1 Introduction ... 4
2 Theoretical background ... 7
2.1 The criminal justice chain ... 7
2.2 Information exchange ... 8
2.3 Integration and supply chain management within criminal justice chain ... 9
2.4 Factors affecting inter-organizational information sharing within public supply chains ... 10
2.5 Conceptual model ... 13 3 Methodology ... 16 3.1 Case introduction ... 17 3.2 Data collection ... 20 3.3 Data analysis ... 22 3.4 Data quality ... 24 4 Results ... 25 4.1 Technological perspective. ... 25
4.2 Organizational and Managerial perspective ... 27
4.3 Political and policy perspective ... 31
4.4 Relations between the different perspectives ... 33
5 Discussion ... 36
6 Conclusion ... 39
6.1 Summary of the research method and key findings ... 39
6.1 Limitations of the study and directions for future research ... 41
References ... 41
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1 Introduction
The amount of criminal activities that took place in the Netherlands between 2007 and 2013 have decreased, according to records of the police and victim surveys. With this, The Netherlands has joined other European countries that also see the amount of committed crimes decrease. The total amount of criminal suspects has dropped by 33 percent since 2007 (CBS, 2013). These numbers indicate that the criminal justice system is headed in the right direction. However, there are also issues within the criminal justice system that are less positive. Research has for example shown that there are still failures in the fulfilment of needs and requirements from victims. An example is the insufficient and non-exact information that is given to the victim (Dandurad, 2014). This is to a great extent due to the low amount of collaboration within the criminal justice chain together with the ineffective information sharing system between all the supply chain partners (Ministerie van Veiligheid en Justitie, 2013; Wagenaar & Soeparman, 2003). Nowadays, there is more attention for the rights and requirements of victims of crime. Since this increased attention has not let to the desired results in terms of fulfilling the needs of the victims, is it clear that a more effective information exchange on inter-organizational level is required to solve these problems (Ministerie van Veiligheid, 2013). The factors that are supporting and constraining the effectiveness of this information exchange need to be explored as a start of achieving a higher degree of effectiveness of the information sharing process among criminal justice partners (Benson, 2014). The requirement of this exploration has been the trigger of this research.
5 every public supply chain. This is dependable on the specific characteristics of a supply chain (Constantino, Di Gravio, Shaban & Tronci, 2015).
There are still supply chains that face a lot of problems with achieving effective information sharing at inter-organizational level (Constantino, Di Gravio, Shaban, Tronci, 2015). An example is the criminal justice chain, where the information exchange is not effective due to a low amount of integration (Wagenaar, Soeparman, 2003; Ministerie van Veiligheid en Justitie, 2013). It is unclear what the specific reasons and factors are for this ineffective information exchange (Algemene Rekenkamer, 2012). This causes a lot of difficulties to improve the effectiveness of the information sharing process (Yang, Maxwell, 2011). It is difficult for the criminal justice chain partners to consider which factors they have to take into account to improve the information exchange. The framework of Yang and Maxwell (2011) provides a decent starting point to get insight into the various factors that are influencing the information exchange in the public sector. However, due to differentiating characteristics of the criminal justice chain, such as the high degree of heterogeneity, unpredictability and autonomy (Pekkanen and Niemi, 2013), other perspectives with accompanying factors might play a more relevant role in the criminal justice chain. In addition, due to the major influence of laws and regulations, the policy perspective could play a different role in the information exchange.
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2 Theoretical background
In section 2.1, the characteristics of the criminal justice chain and problems within the criminal justice chain will be explained. Section 2.2 focuses on the concept of information exchange. This is followed by section 2.3, where the focus lies on the importance of supply chain management and integration within the criminal justice chain. In section 2.4, the factors are elaborated that could affect the effectiveness of information exchange at the inter-organizational level within public supply chains. Finally, the conceptual model will be explained in section 2.5.
2.1 The criminal justice chain
8 Table 2.1: Differentiating characteristics of the criminal justice chain
Process characteristic People characteristic Customers characteristic
High degree of unpredictability The great attention for autonomy and self- management of employees
The large heterogeneity of customers.
Example: Case file consists of
incomplete information due to ineffective information exchange.
Effect: More recovery actions, in which
the whole chain is getting negatively influenced, because the unpredictable factors are difficult to take into account.
Example: Ability of individual judges to
make independent decisions in cases.
Effect: Due to high degree of
autonomy, the resistance against improvement is a huge problem to achieve effective information exchange.
Example: Suspects, victims, witnesses,
general public
Effect: Due to all the different purposes
it is difficult to take risks and privacy issues into account. It requires an optimal consideration of all the different objectives to achieve a complete and accurate information exchange.
It is difficult for the chain partners to simultaneously take into account both the unpredictability and all the different purposes. An effective information exchange is achieved, when the information requirements are fully clear among all criminal justice chain partners (Pekkanen and Niemi, 2013). A prerequisite for achieving an effective justice system is an effective information exchange. An effective justice system should be able to make predictable decisions, that can solve cases in a reasonable time period and that is accessible by the public. When the justice system with accompanying information exchange is ineffective, the credibility is lower and it is less likely that the requirements of suspects and victims will be fulfilled (Deyneli, 2011).
2.2 Information exchange
9 Since dependent government organizations cannot solve complex problems and deliver services in an optimal way by themselves, they are dependent of their connected supply chain partners where effective information exchange is required. They need information and other resources of the connected supply chain partners to perform their own processes in an optimal way (Yang, Maxwell, 2011). It is essential that all the supply chains within the public sector achieve an effective information exchange in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of interacting with their citizens (Bigdeli, Kamal, Cesare, 2013). Due to new information and communication technology the information exchange has become more efficient in terms of time and money. This does not directly infer that an effective information exchange is easily achieved. There are technological, organizational and political factors that influence the degree to which there is a match between required information and sent by the supply chain partners. Without this match there will never be an effective information exchange (Bigdeli, Kamal, Cesare, 2013).
2.3 Integration and supply chain management within criminal justice chain
Supply chain management is defined as “the systematic, strategic coordination of the traditional business functions and the tactics across these business functions within a particular company and across business within the supply chain, for the purposes of improving the long-term performance of the individual companies and the supply chain as a whole”
(
Gonazlez-Loureiro, Dabic, Kiessling, 2015, p. 162). Achieving a proper supply chain management for the public sector and private sector is an important objective, because it is a prerequisite to achieve cost advantages and increase the service quality for meeting the customer requirements (Gonzalez-Loureiro, Dabic, Kiessling, 2015; Larson, 2009). It leads to a better risk allocation, greater visibility, opportunities for innovation, better defined requirements and an improved ability to identify risks. Achieving a high degree of integration is an important requirement to become an effective supply chain (Yu, Jacobs, Salisbury, Enns, 2013). To improve the overall performance of the supply chain, it is important that organizations cooperate in a proper way and effectively manage their supply chain with a high degree of integration and coordination (Liu et al, 2013; Gimenez, Van der Vaart, Van Donk, 2012). Supply chain integration is the degree to which an organization strategically collaborates with its supply chain partners and manages intra- and inter-organizational processes to achieve an effective and efficient flow of products, services, information, money, and decisions, with the objective of providing maximum value to its customers (Zhao, Huo, Flynn, Yeung, 2008).10 Olhager, 2012). Effective information exchange is achieved when the message of the sender is fully understood by the recipient and meets all the information requirements of the recipient (Browne, Ramesh, 2002). The effective information exchange among the supply chain partners is a vital source that differentiates the ‘best value’ supply chains from the customary (Browne, Ramesh, 2002). Both the degree of effective information exchange as well as the characteristics of the supply chain have a big influence on the difficulty to achieving integration. Examples of these characteristics are the size of the partners, the technology that is within a supply chain, and available resources. Achieving a high degree of supply chain integration within a small supply chain that possesses a lot of resources, is much easier than in a big supply chain with complex characteristics. A supply chain is complex when it for example consists of a high degree of globalization, many relationships and rapidly changing environmental aspects (Pagell, 2004).
The criminal justice chain is a public supply chain that has complex characteristics. It not only has the objective to be effective, but also aims for social equality. The rights and needs of the victims and suspects have to be taken into account simultaneously, while also focusing on the opinion of the whole society (De Blok et al., 2014). It is vital that the degree of integration together with the effectiveness of the information exchange has to increase to be able to take these factors into account simultaneously.
Without taking the supply chain perspective into account it is impossible to achieve an effective information exchange. When an organization takes this perspective into account, they know for example the influence of the sent information, but also the influence of the received information (De Blok et al, 2014). It is still difficult for the criminal justice partners to take into account the supply chain perspective due to the high autonomy of the criminal justice chain partners with their accompanying own objectives, budgets, and working processes (De Blok et al, 2014; Yang, Maxwell, 2011).
2.4 Factors affecting inter-organizational information sharing within public supply chains
There is a range of problems and challenges that governmental organizations need to overcome to achieve an effective information exchange. One of these problems is the identification of the factors that affect the effectiveness of the information sharing exchange (Yang, Maxwell, 2011). Yang and Maxwell (2011) have tried to generalize these influencing factors by developing a framework that shows the specific factors that are affecting the information sharing at inter-organizational level. This framework is shown in figure 2.1 and is based on the factors and perspectives that were influencing the information exchange in several public supply chains with different characteristics.
11 Within the framework, there are 3 perspectives with accompanying factors that influence the effectiveness of the information exchange at an inter-organizational level within public supply chains (Yang, Maxwell, 2011).
12 information exchange. Sharing information between different organizations can become complex when the organizations have different origins, values, goals and cultures. The interests of these organizations are often not the same, which makes it hard to share information in an effective way (Yang, Maxwell, 2011). The objectives of lawyers hired by suspects for example often clash with the goals of supply chain partners that are helping the victim. Another important factor is the influence of leadership. The inter-organizational information sharing process will receive a positive influence when leadership is providing vision, guidance, resources, top management support and is respecting the autonomy of participating organizations (Pardo, Cresswell, Thompson, Zhang, 2006). Within the criminal justice chain, the Ministry of Security and Justice plays an important role by communicating the different financial budgets and overarching purposes to all the criminal justice chain partners. For example, there are resources required when a technological improvement needs to be implemented within the criminal justice chain. If the Ministry of Security and Justice does not provide enough resources, it will be difficult to still achieve those improvements.
The third perspective is the political and policy perspective, centralized on the influence of legislations and policies on the inter-organizational information exchange. Legislations and policies could block information exchange, for example the prohibition of sharing very sensitive and regulated information. It could have a negative influence on the effectiveness of information exchange, by blocking information that is required to solve the criminal case. But legislations and policies are required to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of the shared information, like personal information of the suspect and the victim (Zhang, Dawes, 2006).
Although it can be expected that these three perspectives influence the criminal justice chain as well, it is currently unknown what the exact factors are that are required to overcome in the context of the criminal justice chain. It is also unclear if and how possible (inter) relations between factors or perspectives take place or how these perspectives with accompanying factors might reinforce each other. When criminal justice chain partners have to implement budget savings due to a political legislation, it would be logical that this also has a negative impact on the other perspectives, as less resources are available. The current framework of Yang and Maxwell (2011) presents these three perspectives as independent of each other.
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2.5 Conceptual model
According to Yang and Maxwell (2011) there are three perspectives with accompanying factors that could have an impact on the effectiveness of the information sharing exchange. The following line of reasoning providing the fundaments for the conceptual framework, is in correspondence with findings made by Yang and Maxwell (2011), Prajogo and Ollhager (2012), Pekkanen and Niemi (2013) and Olhager and Prajogo (2012) and de Blok et al. (2014).
As stated before, there is a missing chain perspective within the criminal justice chain where all the criminal justice chain partners have separate objectives, budgets and working processes. (De Blok et al., 2014). These different working processes of different criminal justice chain partners do not consist of the same technological systems. When all the criminal justice chain partners are using different information technology systems, it is very difficult to achieve a high degree of information and supply chain integration (Prajogo and Olhager, 2012). It is hence likely that the technological perspective with factor ‘Heterogeneous, hardware, software and information systems’ of the framework of Yang and Maxwell (2011) is applicable to the criminal justice chain.
The organizational and managerial perspective is also likely to be applicable to the criminal justice chain. The high amount of autonomy, differences among supply chain partners, unpredictability and heterogeneity of customers within the criminal justice chain (Pekkanen and Niemi (2013) causes difficulties to implement improvements for a more effective information sharing exchange. Due to the differences in goals and values among suspect-minded and victim-minded organizations and all the separate objectives, budgets and working processes of criminal justice chain partners (De Blok et al, 2014), the factors ‘different origins, values and cultures’ and ‘different operation procedures, control mechanisms and work flows’ are likely to be applicable to the criminal justice chain.
Privacy issues and legislations, regarding sensitive and prohibited information also cause difficulties for the effective information exchange, in which criminal justice chain partners have to take into account the heterogeneity of the customers (Dandurad, 2014). When a partner within the criminal justice chain cannot send all the required information due to privacy legislations, the recipient cannot work in an optimal way due to the missing completeness of the information. The political and policy perspective with the ‘legislations and policies’ factor is therefore also likely to be applicable to the criminal justice chain.
15 Technology perspective:
Heterogeneous hardware, software and information
systems
Organizational and management perspective: Different origins, goals, values
and cultures’ Different Operation Procedures, Control Mechanisms, and Work Flows.
Political and legislations perspective:
Legislations and policies
Information exchange at inter-organizational level within
criminal justice chain
Table 2.2: Summary of factor assumptions and operationalization
Perspective Factor assumptions of Yang
and Maxwell (2011)
Operationalization in / specification in criminal justice chain
Technological perspective Heterogeneous hardware, software and information systems’.
Missing chain perspective within the criminal justice chain together with all the separate objectives, budgets and working processes of criminal justice chain partners (De Blok et al., 2014).
Organizational and Managerial perspective
Different Origins, Values and Cultures
Different Operation Procedures, Control Mechanisms, and Work Flows.
The goal of a victim-oriented organization, is differing to a great extent from a suspect-oriented organization (Ministry of Security and Justice, 2013).
Criminal justice chain partners are not seeing the essence of a supply chain perspective and are too much focusing on their own goals,
budgets and working processes (De Blok et al., 2014).
Political and policy perspective
Legislations and Policies Privacy issues and legislations of the
Ministry have to be taken into account, which are causing difficulties together with the heterogeneity (Dandurad, 2014)
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3 Methodology
This research is based on a single case study. A case study is a methodology for an objective, in-depth examination of a contemporary phenomenon where the investigator has little control over the event, but also aims to generalize across a larger set of cases of the same general type (Yin, 2009). The phenomenon that will be investigated is the information exchange between criminal justice chain partners. The aim of this research is to discover which factors are influencing the information exchange at inter-organizational level within the criminal justice chain. According to Handfield & Melnyk (1998), a case study has several goals: discovery and description, mapping and relationship building, theory validation and theory extension. The most important purposes within this case study research are discovery and descriptions. Due to the explorative function of the case study, this research will discover and describe the factors that are causing the ineffectiveness of the information sharing exchange and compare these with the framework of Yang and Maxwell (2011). The study also focuses on possible relationships between influencing information exchange factors. This case study has been performed in a public supply chain that has differentiating characteristics. It will show whether an expansion or adaptation of the framework is required.
The choice for a single case study is rational, when the case represents unique and differentiating circumstances or characteristics (Yin, 2009). The framework of Yang and Maxwell (2011) is based on a summative literature review that was focused on information exchanges within several public supply chains, where government agencies are involved. The criminal justice chain which consists of differentiating characteristics is not be taken into account by Yang and Maxwell (2011).
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3.1 Case introduction
It is known that the chain partners within the criminal justice chain are working together to solve criminal cases, but take the differing ‘victim’ perspective and ‘suspect’ perspective into account simultaneously. The purpose of the victim is to receive protection with a strong position in their rights, being sufficiently informed and being helped afterwards in a financial, practical or emotional way (Benson, 2014). This contradicts with the goal of the suspect that wants to get prevented from being punished. The victim and suspect each follow a different route through the chain. In this research, the route that the victim is following through the criminal justice chain is chosen. This route is selected because the failures in fulfilling the requirements of victims are also the result of an ineffective information exchange within the criminal justice chain (Ministry of Justice, 2013). The organizations in this route are working with victims in order to take them serious, recognize their needs and problems and threat them carefully and correctly. The organizations are giving the victims the opportunity to recover of the consequences of their offense (Ministerie van Veiligheid en Justitie, 2013). Nine parties with accompanying information links are associated with this route, which are summarized in the following table 3.1, table 3.2 and Appendix A.
Table 3.1: Partners of the criminal justice chain, route of the victim
Partners Functions Abbreviation
Police Fill in all required police report information, including personal suspect- and victim information.
Police
Public Prosecution Service
Stands for prosecuting and tracing the suspect, but also have to take into account more and more the rights and needs of the victim.
PPS
The Judiciary Is determining the judgement and is the starting point of the execution of this judgement.
Judiciary
Victim Support the Netherlands
Are giving victims the opportunity to receive support in a legal, practical or emotional way.
VSTN
Centraal Justitieel Incasso Bureau
Have to collect money from the perpetrator and send it to the victim, when judgement consists of financial compensation.
CJIB
Judicial Service Institutions
Is responsible for the detention of prisoners. JSI is thereby dependable of correct prisoner information.
JSI
Information Point Detention Development
Is responsible for informing the victim about the development of the detention. They have to inform the victim about permission moments of the prisoner and the moment when the prisoner will be released.
IPDD
Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund
Provides financial compensation to people who have been victims of a violent crime with serious psychological or physical injury. To ensure that the financial compensation is justified does the CICF Fund have to receive all the required victim statements and police reports or judgements
CICF
Probation Writes an advice report about the suspect, which serves as a resource for the Judiciary to determine the judgement.
18 Short process description of the Information exchange within the criminal justice chain:
The route that the victim follows through the criminal justice chain contains nine possible partners with 16 accompanying links. The information exchange starts at the police when a victim has reported their incident at the police. The police have to register all this data and send this information to:
- The VSTN which enables them to get in contact with the victim.
- The CICF when they request the police for the victim statement.
- PPS and the Probation for receiving the police report.
- The JSI which consists of personal suspect information.
When the PPS has finished their process, they have to send information to:
- The Judiciary, which has to receive all the case-information for determining the judgement.
- The CICF, when PPS receives a request.
- The VSTN which have to receive a by the victim filled in rights-and-needs document.
- The IPDD, which have to receive personal victim information, to get in contact with the
victim.
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Police
Public Prosecution Service Victim Support The
Netherlands Judicial Service Institutions The Judiciary Probation Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund CJIB Link 1: total police report, including all required information
and personal information of victim and suspect
Link 6: Complete police report PPS checks whether the report is complete to send a trial proposition to the judge.
Link 13: Judgement information for start execution Link 2: Personal information of the victim
High degree of automation due EDP-system
Link 7: rights and needs’ document, that has been filled in by the victim
Link 15: Automatic file comparison to prevent double payment Link 11: adhesion form
for plausability test
Link 8: Personal information of the perpetrator and victim , Link: 3 E-mail, including message that
Someone is arrested
Link 9: personal information of the suspect, including an execution indicator
Link 12: Police report with all the suspect information Information exchange
prohibited due to privacy legislations
Link 13:Judgement information for plausability test Link 4:
Send the police report, including Victim-statement’ Required to perform a plausibility test.
Link 17: Complete advice report
Information Point Detention Development Link 16:Information concerning
permission moments
Link 10: Personal information of the victim Link 5: E-mail that
someone is arrested
20 Table 3.2: Information links within the criminal justice chain.
Criminal justice chain partners Receiver Sender Public Prosecution service Judiciary Victim Support the Netherlands Centraal Justitieel Incasso Bureau Judicial Service Institutions Information Point Detention Development Criminal injuries Compensatio n fund Probation
Police Link 1: - Link 2 - Link 3 - Link 4 Link 5
Public Prosecution Service
- Link 6 Link 7 Link 8 Link 9 Link 10 Link 11 Link 12
The Judiciary Link 13 - - - Link 14 -
Victim Support the Netherlands - - - - Centraal Justitieel Incasso Bureau - - - Link 15 - Judicial Service Institutions - - - - Information Point Detention Development - - - - Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund - - - Link 16 - - Probation Link 17 - - - -
3.2 Data collection
21 Table 3.3: Overview performed interviews
Criminal justice chain partner
Job description Date Place
Police Consultant/Projectleader of
strengthening the position of victims at the Police.
12-05-2015 Amsterdam
Public Prosecution Service Project manager at Public Prosecution Service
23-04-2015 Breda
The Judiciary Consultant ‘Criminal Justice’ 08-05-2015 Den Haag
Victim Support the Netherlands
Project leader 29-04-2015 Lelystad
Centraal Justitieel Incasso Bureau
Leader of work group ‘Injury compensation’
21-04-2015 Leeuwarden
Judicial Service Institutions Consultant 28-04-2015 Den Haag
Information Point Detention Development
Overall coordinator 20-05-2015 Arnhem
Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund
Projectleader ‘Victim Policy’ at CICF. 01-05-2015 Den Haag
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3.3 Data analysis
The analysis of qualitative data consists of the identification, coding and categorization of the patterns and themes found in the data. It is very important that the chosen analysis-method is performed optimal to achieve clear and applicable findings (Boyatzis, 1998). The gathered data has to be organized into themes or essences, which in turn can be fed into descriptions, models, or theories (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). The data of this research is analyzed by using qualitative content analysis (Miles and Huberman, 1994). The analysis of this research followed the three procedures that are suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994). The first procedure was the data reduction where all qualitative data obtained from the interview transcripts has been reduced and organized by discarding irrelevant data as result of coding the coding process. The second procedure was the data display in the form of tables. This data display allowed the research to begin with the third and last procedure, called the ‘conclusion drawing’, in which the research question is answered.
The coding process consisted of organizing the raw data into conceptual codes. These codes are defined by Miles and Huberman (1994, p56) as tags or labels for assigning units of meaning to the descriptive or inferential information compiled during a study. It is important that these codes are valid, mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. For the coding process of this research, methods are used that could be divided into two cycles (Saldaña, 2012). The first cycle of coding contains the processes that happen during the initial coding of data. The second cycle of coding is the process that enables the research to move from multiple codes in the first cycle to a few major themes/categories/concepts (Saldaña, 2012). The primary goal during the second coding cycle is to develop a sense of categorical, thematic, conceptual organization from your array of first cycle codes.
During the first coding cycle, descriptive coding is used. Descriptive coding summarizes the basic topic of a passage of qualitative data in a sentence in a word or a short phrase to develop a basic vocabulary of raw data to form 'bread and butter' categories for further analytic work.
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Descriptive coding:
"Currently we receive the required information by e-mail. There is still no
automatic systemlink between the technological systems. This is negatively influencing the timeliness of the information“ - Criminal Injuries
Compensation Fund
“We receive for a great extent the required judgement information of the judiciary by e-mail, we have to wait too long for the information. We really
need an automatic systemlink.” - Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund
“There is no automatic systemlink between our system and the system of the Public Prosecution service. This increases the risks of incomplete
information and incorrect information.” - Police
“We think that an automatic system link between the technological systems would have an positive effect on the quality of the information exchange” -
Public Prosecution Service
“The messsage that someone is arrested, we still receive by e-mail, while we have considered that the use of a central database or automatic systemlink
would give the effectiveness of information exchange a boost” - Judicial Service Institutions
“We know that the Public Prosecution Service is implementing digitization, and that when these systems are linked, the information exchange would be
more correct and complete.” - Judiciary
“The detailed informationform, including execution indicator that we receive from the Public Prosecution Service is still being sent by e-mail. The degree of automation should be increased to give this link a boost. – Judicial Service
Institution
“Because the CJIB and Public Prosecution Service can’t communicate directly with eachother due to missing system link, are there a lot of recovery
actions on this information exchange point.” - CJIB
Pattern coding
Missing automatic link between technological systems
Pattern coding
Missing forward technological control system
Descriptive coding:
“There have to be a technological control system, before we receive the information of the police and Public Prosecution Service” - Judicial
Service Institutions
“Currently are there too much recovery actions for the Public Prosecution Service, because the information does not meet the quality requirements. The implementation of a technological control system at
the Public Prosecution Service would decrease this.” - CJIB “The technological system have to be optimised to increase the quality
of the information that we are sending. Mandatory checkmarks for example as part of a technological control system would be very
helpful” - Police
“A forward technological control system would give the quality of the victim personal information in terms of completness and correctness a
positive effect” - Public Prosecution Service
“Completeness is very important for us, it are small technological changes in the system, which increases the control of the information that would give the information a positive boost”- Victim Support the
Netherlands
“In our opinion would a forward technological control system at the police give the information we receive a boost.” - Public Prosecution
Service.”
Thematic coding
Lack of IT-capabilities
Three ultimate perspectives were determined beforehand which would influence the information exchange within the criminal justice chain, based on the theory of Yang and Maxwell (2011). After the coding process of this study, new and more detailed themes are determined that have to be added to the framework of Yang and Maxwell (2011). Example of the applied coding process at the technological perspective can be found at figure 4.2, while the total tree of organized and coded data of all the three perspectives can be found in Appendix C.
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3.4 Data quality
The quality of any case study research is determined by the construct validation, internal validation, external validation and reliability. Construct validation focuses on the degree to which a case study investigator has developed a sufficiently operational set of measures and that subjective measures are used for the collection of data (Yin, 2009). To increase the construct validity of this research, key informants have reviewed the draft of this report before the official document is handed in. The second test focuses on the internal validity. The internal validity is the extent to which no other variables except the one you are studying, caused the result. The internal validity is especially important for causal studies and not for explorative studies (Yin, 2009). Regardless of this, multiple interviews have been performed to achieve a respectable amount of internal validity. In this research is the discovery of the factors that are affecting the effectiveness of the information sharing process within the criminal justice chain more an explorative purpose than a causal purpose. The internal validity is therefore playing a less important role within this research.
The external validity is the extent to which the results of the study can be generalized to other settings. The external validity of this research is achieved by formulating a theory during the research design phase (Yin, 2009). Reliability is the extent to which the results remain stable, when other researchers perform this research (Voss, Tsikriktsis, Frohlich, 2002). The implementation and development of a case study protocol with accompanying interview protocol-script will cause a high amount of reliability within this research (Yin, 2009).
Table 3.4: Overview of the tests, tactics and which phase of research the tactic occurs
Tests Case study tactic Phase of research in which
tactic occurs Construct validity Have key informants review
draft case study report
Composition
Internal validity Multiple interviews Data collection
External validity Use theory in this single case study
Research design
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4 Results
This section will summarize the main results of the research where firstly, the technological perspective will be elaborated. This is followed by the organizational and managerial perspective and finally the political and policy perspective. At the end of each overarching theme a table is developed a table that summarizes the results of that theme. After that, the possible relations between the perspectives are explained.
4.1 Technological perspective.
Within the criminal justice chain, the degree of automation is still too low. All the nine interviewed parties confirmed that it is a priority and requirement that the degree of automation should be increased and that technological improvements have to be implemented. The analysis of the interviews have resulted in two specific influencing technological factors.
Factor 1: ‘Missing automatic system link between technological systems’
There are a lot of different technological systems used within the criminal justice chain without an automatic system link between the systems. The information receiving parties have to import the data again in their own technological system by themselves. An example is the link between police and the PPS, where PPS have to import the police report information by themselves. This entails a certain amount of risk and has a negative effect on the completeness and accuracy of the information. The missing system link also have a negative impact on the timeliness of the information. The CICF for example has to receive the police report to perform a plausibility test to determine whether a compensation is justified. The CICF have to wait longer before they can perform the test and help the victims due to the missing system link.
Factor 2: ‘Missing forward technological control system’
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Lack of
IT-capabilities
Missing automatic system link betweentechnological systems
Police – PPS:
“An automatic system link between the technological systems would have an positive effect on the quality of the information exchange” – PPS
“There is no automatic system link between our system and the system of the Public Prosecution service. This increases the risks of incomplete information and incorrect information.” – Police
Police – CICF:
“We receive for a great extent the required judgement information of the judiciary by e-mail, we have to wait too long for the information. We really need an automatic system link”. – CICF
Missing forward technological control system
PPS – CJIB:
“A forward technological control system would give the quality of the victim personal information in terms of completeness and correctness a positive effect” - PPS
“The implementation of a technological control system at the Public Prosecution Service would decrease the amount of recovery actions.” – CJIB
Police - VSTN
“Completeness is very important for us, it are small technological changes in the system, which increases the control of the information that would give the information a positive boost”- VSTN
“The technological system have to be optimized to increase the quality of the information that we are sending. Mandatory checkmarks as part of the technological control system would be very helpful.” - Police
Overarching theme: Lack of information-technology capabilities
The missing automated system link between the technological systems and the missing forward control system both contribute to an ineffective information exchange within the criminal justice chain. These two problems can be determined as missing information technology capabilities, which negatively influence the completeness, accuracy and timeliness of the information. The concerned criminal justice chain partners all agree that the overall technological systems of each partner need to be optimized to facilitate a more effective information exchange. A supporting quote of this theme is: “We know that the Public Prosecution Service is implementing digitization. When these systems are linked and controlled, the information exchange would be more correct and complete.” – Judiciary. The following figure summarizes the results of this theme.
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4.2 Organizational and Managerial perspective
This perspective focuses on the organizational characteristics that influence the inter-organizational information exchange. There are five factors and two overarching themes that impact the effectiveness of the information exchange.
Factor 3: ‘Missing chain perspective and job knowledge’
At this moment the chain perspective and job knowledge is too low at for example the employees of the police, who are registering the personal information of victims and suspects and sending this information to the next chain partners. This is the case at the information link between the police and VSTN. When an employee of the police forgets to register the telephone number of the victim, it is impossible for Victim Support the Netherlands to get in contact with the victim. These parties do not take enough responsibility for the consequences of their actions. These employees should ask themselves every time: “What kind of influence do our actions have for the rest of the criminal justice chain?” Due to the low chain perspective and job knowledge, the risk of incorrect and incomplete information has increased. This is also a problem at the information link between the Judiciary and Public Prosecution Service. Without receiving the judgement information from the judiciary it is impossible for the Public Prosecution Service to start with the execution of the judgement.
Factor 4: ‘Differences in goals’
There are criminal justice chain partners, like the VSTN, CICF and IPDD, which are totally focused on supporting and meeting the rights and requirements of the victim. But on the other side there are also chain partners, for example the Judiciary and PPS, which are too focused on the prosecution and punishment of the perpetrator, while not taking into account the rights and needs of the victim. These organizations do not see the consequences for the victim when the exchanged telephone number is incorrect. When all of these objectives would be taken into account by all the criminal justice chain partners, the overall information exchange will receive a boost in terms of timeliness, completeness and accuracy. Examples of information links that have problems due to these goal differences are the link between the police and CICF, and the link between the PPS and the IPDD.
Overarching theme 1: Lack of employees’ capabilities
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Lack of employees
capabilities
Missing chain perspective and jobknowledge
Police – VSTN:
“The average employee at the police that is registering personal information of the victim, has too little job knowledge, where the problems and consequences of missing information are not enough been taken into account” – Police
“The Public Prosecution Service and Police should be more aware of what kind of implications incomplete data has for the treatment of the victim. It lacks the essence of a chain perspective.” – VSTN
PPS – Judiciary:
“The judiciary does not see the consequences of not sending timely the judgement to the Public Prosecution Service. Without these data, is it impossible to start the execution.” – PPS
“The chain perspective is lacking at the Judiciary when importing and sending this data, therefore it takes much longer” –Judiciary
Differences in goals
Police – CICF
“The lack of working arrangements and the widely differences in purposes between the police and the CICF have a negative impact on the effectiveness of the information exchange.” – CICF
Police – IPDD
"The Judiciary is sending judgment information too late to the Public Prosecution Service. They do not take well into account the consequences for the rest of the chain and are more focused on the prosecution of the perpetrator" – IPDD
information exchange, because not all the risks are taken into account by all the employees that are performing their processes. Statements that were supporting this theme were:
1) “The average employee at the police that is registering personal information of the victim, has too little job knowledge, where the problems and consequences of missing information are not enough been taken into account” – Police
2) “This task now performed by people who have less knowledge and system knowledge. This entails risks for the information exchange” – The Judiciary
The results of this theme are summarized in the following figure.
29 Factor 5: ‘Missing conventions and Service Level Agreements’
Several criminal justice chain partners are currently sending information, without really working according to the information requirements, because there are no formal written contractual agreements available. Due to this missing Service Level Agreement (SLA) there are still a lot of unclarified aspects in terms of information requirements. The result of this missing SLA is a lower amount of correct and complete information that is sent in timely fashion. This is the case for example at the link between the PPS and the CJIB and the link between the PPS and VSTN. The CJIB often receives incomplete or incorrect information of the PPS, which prevents the CJIB from starting to execute the judgement, while the VSTN too often receives a by the victim filled in rights and needs form, because the requirements are not clear among the parties.
Factor 6: ‘Missing nationwide uniformity among offices’
Most of the criminal justice chain partners have different offices through the country. The problem is that the quality of information send by these offices differs. An information link that has problems with this missing uniformity is between the PPS and CJIB. The CJIB has to receive victim information and perpetrator information from all the Public Prosecution Service offices to start with the execution of the judgement. Because there are huge differences in the quality and timeliness of the sent information, it is difficult for the CJIB to take these into account and it is impossible to finish each case within the same time. This is mainly due to differences among working processes, regulations and requirements within every organization. The timeliness differences of the sent information by the different offices is the biggest problem nowadays. The information link between the PPS and IPDD is another link that is influenced by the missing uniformity. The IPDD needs personal information of the victim, to contact the victim about the detention development. There are huge differences in the sent information by the different offices which causes different treatments for victims.
Factor 7: ‘Higher amount of control required with usage of KPI’s
30 Judiciary should be monitored by implementing KPI’s. By using KPI’s, the reasons can be discovered why sittings at the court could not take place and solutions could be invented.
Overarching theme 2: Lack of formalization
All these five factors together negatively influence the information exchange within the criminal justice chain due to a lack of formalization within the criminal justice chain partners. The formalization is the extent to which work roles are structured in an organization, and the activities of the employees are governed by rules and procedures. Because there are several information links without service level agreements which are not monitored by KPI´s, there are a lot of mismatches between required information and send information. These lack of procedures are causing also the missing nationwide uniformity and are not supporting the alignment of the different goals within the criminal justice chain. When there are no structural procedures available for the exchange of information, employees of criminal justice chain partners are missing the guidance of seeing the essence of a chain perspective or achieving more job knowledge. A higher degree of formalization could make the information exchange more effective. Supporting quotes of this theme were:
“Structural procedures and SLA’s with accompanying KPI’s are more and more becoming a
prerequisite for us. This enables us to exchanging information with a higher degree of completeness, accuracy and timeliness” – Probation
“To increase the effectiveness of information and to see where mistakes are performed, KPI’s
have to be determined. As a result, errors can be solved in a structural way, which increase the effectiveness of the information exchange” – CICF
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Differences in goals
Police – CICF
“The lack of working arrangements and the widely differences in purposes between the police and the CICF have a negative impact on the effectiveness of the information exchange.” – CICF
Police – IPDD
"The Judiciary is sending judgment information too late to the Public Prosecution Service. They do not take well into account the consequences for the rest of the chain and are more focused on the prosecution of the perpetrator" – IPDD
Lack of
formalization
Missing conventions and Service LevelAgreements PPS – CJIB
“A Service Level Agreement, including a optimal control system would increase the information exchange effectiveness”- PPS
“To increase the quality of information delivery, has the amount of control to increase. There is missing a proper SLA that consists the real requirements of information” – CJIB
PPS - VSTN
A SLA, including an optimal control system would increase the information exchange with VSTN” - Public Prosecution Service
Missing nationwide uniformity among offices
PPS – CJIB
“The differences at the offices of the Public Prosecution Service make it very difficult to take into account all kinds of information process elements. There are big quality differences in sent information by the different offices" – CJIB
PPS – IPDD
"We receive all the information of different offices. Only when we receive this information is a huge difference in the timeliness, completeness and accuracy of the information that is sent by every office. There are huge office differences on this interface"- IPDD
Higher amount of control required with usage of KPI’s
PPS - CJIB
“To improve this information link, there have to be determined KPI's, to ensure that people address the structural faults, which nowadays happens still way too many at Ad Hoc Bases" – CJIB
“At this information link are really KPI's required, so that in the longer term employees can be held accountable for their mistakes and this can be solved in a structural way" – CJIB
PPS - Judiciary
“The sittings at the court that can not take place are not investigated structural. To ensure that less sittings could not take place, KPI's have to be determined – Judiciary”
Missing chain perspective and job knowledge
Police – VSTN:
“The average employee at the police that is registering personal information of the victim, has too little job knowledge, where the problems and consequences of missing information are not enough been taken into account” – Police
“The Public Prosecution Service and Police should be more aware of what kind of implications incomplete data has for the treatment of the victim. It lacks the essence of a chain perspective.” – VSTN
PPS – Judiciary:
“The judiciary does not see the consequences of not sending timely the judgement to the Public Prosecution Service. Without these data, is it impossible to start the execution.” – PPS
“The chain perspective is lacking at the Judiciary when importing and sending this data, therefore it takes much longer.”–Judiciary
Figure 4.3: Results summary of theme ’lack of formalization’ with accompanying examples and quotes
4.3 Political and policy perspective
This third perspective is focusing on the influence of legislations and policies on the inter-organizational information sharing process. Two factors are identified that influence the information exchange at inter-organizational level within the criminal justice chain:
Factor 8: ‘Political savings’
32 They are working more and more with trainees nowadays that have less experience and knowledge of processes than the previous employees. This has increased the risk of incorrect, incomplete information, but also have decreased the capacity at the Public Prosecution Service. Examples of information links that get negatively influenced by this are the link between the PPS and CICF and the link between PPS and VSTN. PPS has to receive the whole report to perform a plausibility test. The timeliness of the information that is send is very bad, which is caused by the low capacity of the PPS. The VSTN are also noticing a lower degree of complete, accurate and timely received information since the implemented budget cuts.
Factor 9: Required update privacy law
Because the personal information of the victim and the suspect is very sensitive, all the chain partners have to take into account the privacy law. An important information link that is impacted by this is the link between the probation and VSTN. Due to the privacy law, the exchange of information between these two parties not allowed. This privacy law restricts this information exchange, due to the risk of exchanging for example personal victim information with the perpetrator. But in the opinion of the probation and VSTN, an update of the privacy law is required. The suspect/perpetrator-minded chain partners has to become more victim-minded. Information of victim-minded chain partners is required when suspect-minded chain partners want to take the needs and rights of the victim into account. Otherwise it stays impossible to become more victim-minded.
Overarching theme: ‘Process consequences of political decisions.’
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Process
consequences of
political decisions
Political savings
PPS – CICF
“The budget cuts that the Public Prosecution Service had to implement, as requirement of the police have caused a way too low capacity. This negatively affects the information exchange"- CICF
PPS – VSTN
“The budget cuts have ensured that the job knowledge and system knowledge of the Public Prosecutor Service Employees are decreased. This results in a lower focus on chain perspective and ineffective information exchange.” – VSTN
Required update privacy law
VSTN – Probation
“There should be a Service Level Agreement determined for the privacy regulations, so it is clear for each party what they can tell each other what they can not tell each other." - VSTN
Probation - VSTN
“Because there is a rule that we are not allowed to exchange data, due to the privacy of the victim and perpetrator are our own processes negatively influenced." – Probation
“To meet the needs of the victim, we need information from the defendant" – Probation “The information from the victim, we could very well use information of the victim to better supervise the perpetrator" – Probation
“The cuts that have been imposed on the prosecution by the government ensure that the capacity is way too low, which negatively affects the exchange of information.” – CICF
“Changes must be made quickly to join the political demands. As a result, quick-fix solutions
are often applied which are not optimal.” – CJIB Results are summarized in the next figure.
Figure 4.4: Results summary of theme ‘process consequences of political decisions’ with accompanying examples and quotes
4.4 Relations between the different perspectives
inter-34 organizational level. But there are also relationships between those perspectives with accompanying factors, in which they have together influence on the information exchange. The analysis of the conducted interviews has shown that there are two specific relations between the three perspectives. Relationship 1: ‘Process consequences of political decisions’ => ’Lack of employees’ capabilities’
and ‘lack of IT capabilities’
The first relationship consists of the influence of the political perspective on the organizational and managerial perspective and political and policy perspective. It is the relationship between the factors ‘political savings’, ‘missing job knowledge and chain perspective’ and ‘lack of IT capabilities’. Due to the political savings the Public Prosecution Service has to decrease their capacity and work with trainees. This has a direct negative impact on the amount of job knowledge and chain perspective. Also, the political savings put pressure on the improvement of the technological perspective to solve the lack of IT-capabilities. When the criminal justice chain partners wants to link their technological systems to each other, there are financial resources required to make this possible. When the politics keep implementing cuts and additional savings, this will never be possible. Supporting quotes of this relationship are:
“The budget cuts have ensured that the job knowledge and system knowledge of the Public
Prosecutor Service Employees has decreased. This results in a lower focus on chain perspective and ineffective information exchange.” – VSTN
“The information link have to be much more automated, for example by using a central database in order to improve the effectiveness of the information exchange process. It was almost developed, but due to budget cuts it was not done any more.”
Relationship 2: ‘Process consequences of political decisions’ => ‘Lack of formalization’.
The second relationship is between the ‘required update of privacy law’ and ‘goal differences among criminal justice chain partners’ in which the political and policy perspective influences the organizational and managerial perspective. The currently privacy law is preventing an optimal information exchange between suspect-minded chain partners and victim-minded chain partners. This is causing difficulties in achieving the objective to align the goals of all the criminal justice chain partners. Therefore an update of the privacy law is required. It will increase the degree to which the goals are in line with each other.
Quotes that support this relationship are:
“The privacy law has a negative influence on the information exchange. We are still not allowed
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5 Discussion
This research has explored the factors that are influencing the information exchange at inter-organizational level within the criminal justice chain. As described in the theoretical framework, three perspectives with accompanying factors influence the information exchange among supply chain partners (Yang, Maxwell, 2011). Due to differentiating and complex characteristics of the criminal justice chain (Pekkanen and Niemi, 2013), adaptations to the framework might be required. The case study of this research has investigated the factors that impact the information exchange. After analyzing the interviews, all the three perspectives have showed to have influence on the effectiveness of the information exchange at inter-organizational level within the criminal justice chain. In addition, several new overarching themes, factors and relationships and factors are identified which were not discovered by Yang and Maxwell (2011). The following section will elaborate on these new discoveries: Lack of IT capabilities: This is the first overarching theme, which consists of the technological factors ‘Missing automatic system link between technological systems’ and ‘Missing forward technological control system’. The lack of IT capabilities has a negative effect on the information exchange, as it is not able to handle the degree of unpredictability and heterogeneity within the criminal justice chain. This confirms the research of Pekkanen and Niemi (2013), which stated that customization was impossible due to the high degree of heterogeneity and unpredictability. Due to these missing capabilities, the exchanged information has a low degree of completeness, accuracy and timeliness. The explored factors and its overarching theme are in line with the technological perspective of the framework of Yang and Maxwell (2011). The ‘missing automatic system link between technological systems’ is in line with ‘heterogeneous software, hardware and information systems. The criminal justice chain partners are using a lot of different technological systems. It is very difficult to achieve an automatic system link between those technological systems, due to all the different properties and aspects of the technological systems but also due to all the different working processes, objectives and budgets among the criminal justice chain partners, which was stated by De Blok et al. (2014). The ‘Required forward technological control system’ and overarching theme ‘Lack of IT capabilities’ are in line with the factor ‘IT capability’ of the framework of Yang and Maxwell (2011). Many recovery actions are required within the criminal justice chain, due to a missing technological control system which controls whether requirements are met before the information is sent.
37 there is no strategic collaboration among the criminal justice chain partners with an effective information exchange, which is in line with the research of Prajogo and Olhager (2012). Due to the missing conventions, service level agreements, and insufficient usage of KPI’s is there a low overall degree of coordination within the criminal justice chain. This negatively impact the overall performance of the criminal justice chain and the effectiveness of the information exchange, which confirms the research of Liu et al. (2013) and Gimenez, Van der Vaart and Van Donk (2012).
The factor ‘missing nationwide uniformity’ is in line with the factor ‘different operation procedures, control mechanisms and workflows’, where all the offices have different workflows and requirements for the sent information. This missing uniformity is caused by all the different working processes and procedures among the criminal justice chain partners (De Blok et al., 2014). The last factor ‘goal differences among criminal justice chain partners’ can be seen as ‘different origins, values and cultures’, but also as ‘resistance to change’, especially because the criminal justice chain partners that are suspect-minded face lot of difficulties in becoming more victim-minded. All the criminal justice chain partners agree about the fact that they want more procedures to increase control to solve problems in a structural manner. At this moment the control and usage of procedures is too low, which causes incomplete and inaccurate information. The research of Yang and Maxwell (2011) did not take the essence and importance of formalization into account for their framework, while this research has shown that within the criminal justice chain there certainly is a need for a higher amount of formalization.
