Pamela Scanlon, executive director of the San Diego region’s Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS), is the winner of the annual Robert P. Shumate National Public Safety and Justice Contributor to Excellence Award. The award is given by the IJIS Institute, a nonprofit representing leading companies that collaborate with government agencies on criminal justice information and technology initiatives. Under Scanlon’s leadership, ARJIS has become a major information sharing hub that IJIS says “seamlessly shares information in a real time basis.” The system, used by 11,000 justice system personnel in Southern California, is a hub of photographs, crime statistics, gang and sex offender information.
ARJIS is involved in a Border Safe Initiative to share data between California and Arizona, and a wireless project to share critical data and photos among all justice and homeland security agencies in the region. Scanlon serves on many boards and committees, including the California Statewide Data Sharing Task Force. She is a founding member of Justice Information Sharing Professionals and is co-chair of the IJIS Institute's task force examining automated license plate readers. The award is being given tonight in a dinner at an IJIS symposium near Washington, D.C.