Ten years ago, the predominant obstacle to true integration was the technology, but today, most experts agree that the barriers to integration are largely human. The goal of coordinating all the data already available and continues to flow down the justice pipeline is increasingly uniting disparate agencies. Successful commercial and public integration efforts are becoming common, and on the backs of these successes, other agencies are learning how to build regional and statewide systems. From San Diego to the heartland, justice professionals are learning from each other and growing the future of justice. Criminals are becoming more and more mobile.
Gangs have chapters in every state and run like loosely managed, multinational corporations.
Steve Natale of the Los Angeles Police Department. These changes are finally pushing law enforcement to become more integrated. Often it is not new investigative information that cracks a case or closes a conviction. We know that the child molesters, the kidnappers and the rapists are almost always in the system already. A ton of information is already sitting out there on the databases of local, state and regional agencies of all kinds.