$26 Million Federal Grant Will Link South Carolina Courts Online
The state of South Carolina has received a grant of $25.7 million to implement an online court-information system accessible to law enforcement officials. State officials hope that the system will be able to give police and courts immediate access to information about defendants’ previous convictions and arrests, as well as court transcripts and other instruments for fact-checking when evaluating testimony or a suspect’s story.
All criminal and civil court records will eventually be available on the system. However, because of the scope of the project, officials estimate that it will take several years to be completed.
Chief Justice Jean Toal reckons that courts must first be wired to go online, while paper records must be digitized and judges and court staff must be properly educated.
The counties of Greenville, Richland, and Pickens have the system that links court records together with court clerks, SLED, and the prison system, and Toal says York County will come on board in October.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from the The State (SC) (09/23/05); Leblanc, Clif; Robinson, Bill .
