Together with the U.S. Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (Global), the US Office of Justice Programs (OJP) has released the first operational version of the Global Justice Extensible Markup Language (XML) Data Model (GJXDM) Version 3.0 to the justice community. "Developed by Global and OJP, the GJXDM is an object-oriented data model comprised of a well-defined vocabulary of approximately 2,500 stable data objects, or reusable components, that facilitate the exchange and reuse of information from multiple sources and multiple applications." GJXDM is model-based, object-oriented, extensible, and ISO 11179 compliant. The project goal is to support public safety by eliminating communication delays and processing errors through automated cross-jurisdiction data sharing.

"The effort that began in March 2001 as a reconciliation of data definitions evolved into a broad two-year endeavor to develop an XML-based framework that would enable the entire justice and public safety community to effectively share information at all levels -- laying the foundation for local, state, and national justice interoperability. The GJXDM represents a significant milestone in the process of developing appropriate standards for expressing the baseline data needs of the justice and public safety communities and their related partners. In that sense, it will become a reference benchmark for jurisdictions in the justice and public safety communities to use, in its entirety or in part, to fulfill their specific needs."

Since the first v3.0 pre-release in April 2003, the GJXDM "has undergone an intensive review and validation process that included an open public comment period, pilot validation projects, an online feedback and error-reporting mechanism (Bugzilla), and a new GJXDM listserv for sharing expertise and support. As a result, three data dictionary prerelease versions evolved that incorporated more than 100 modifications. Today, more than 50 law enforcement and justice-related projects have been implemented utilizing the GJXDM prerelease versions, further demonstrating the flexibility and stability of the GJXDM."

From the Announcement

"During 2004 the GJXDM development teams are planning to introduce new training materials for the Data Model, a content-based search tool for the Data Model, performance testing tools, and an online database that will allow practitioners to post information about their application of the GJXDM."

A Global Justice Extensible Markup Language (XML) Data Model (GJXDM) Listserv has now been available to the justice community. "The GJXDM Listserv is an electronic forum created for the purpose of developing and broadening the community of justice XML expertise and support for the application of the GJXDM and Global Justice XML Data Dictionary (GJXDD) elements. The GJXDM Listserv promotes the exchange of ideas and experiences associated with the GJXDM and GJXDD. Justice XML projects are steadily being developed and implemented throughout the country. As a result, their successes have fostered a growing community of interest.

The Listserv provides a forum for in-depth discussions on the following XML topics:

• XML literature
• research
• education, training, and conference opportunities
• hardware and software specifications and acquisitions
• proposals
• plan development
• pilot projects
• implemented programs (local, state, tribal, and national applications)

Listserv membership should include justice and public safety practitioners, managers, policymakers, developers, and programmers involved with building applications using the GJXDM, as well as private sector and local, state, tribal, and federal government communities of practice who are involved in data integration efforts using XML."

From the GJXDM FAQ

The primary goal of the Global Justice XML Data Model is "to provide a consistent, extensible, maintainable, XML Schema reference specification for data elements and types that represents the data requirements of the general justice and public safety communities. A secondary goal is to develop a more comprehensive data dictionary to support the XML schemas, and to be used with technology other than XML Schema..."

"The data model consists primarily of object classes and properties: (1) Object classes are converted into XML Schema types. They represent a specific syntax and structure for a set of values; (2) Properties are converted into XML Schema attreibutes and elements. They represent characteristics, or values, of things. GJXDM v3 is a reference model that is based on a class hierarchy of many specific objects (xsd:type) derived from one very general object (SuperType). Each object contains any number of properties (xsd:element or xsd:attribute.) These properties may be simple or complex elements (containing sub-elements.) The highest level object classes (under the SuperType) are PersonType, OrganizationType, PropertyType (i.e., things), LocationType, ContactInformationType (i.e., electronic means of contact), ActivityType, EventType, DocumentType, and other smaller supporting types. There is also a special class of RelationshipType used to specify meaning to a link between two object instances. On many of these objects, there are metadata properties (xsd:element or xsd:attribute) that supplement meaning. For example, all properties of MeasureType have a mandatory units attribute..."

"Data components were built from approximately 35 data dictionaries, XML Schema documents, or XML data models under development or in use around the justice and public safety communities. These sources yielded approximately 16,000 data components (elements, attributes, and types). Through study and analysis of the similarities and differences among these components, approximately 2,200 properties (xsd:element) and 550 type definitions (xsd:type) were synthesized to represent a common set of elements and types, the GJXDM v3. It is important to realize that the authors have not attempted to invent content. Instead, the data model tries to capture the requirements of the 35 data sources as completely and accurately as possible. However, compromises were necessary in order to follow the basic design principles and criteria adopted by the XML Structure Task Force..."

GJXDM Supporting Schemas

The GJXDM schema is dependent on several external schemas, also provided in the release package. "These schemas represent code tables, which are taken from specifications and publications created by other groups and organizations. The Global Justice XML Data Model references these code tables, in an effort to maintain the independence of the various specifications. We include a brief version of the schema, as well as an annotated version... We also include proxy schemas. A proxy schema acts as an intermediary between an external schema and the justice data model. Proxy schemas generally add attributes from the supertype to external simple types. This allows an external type, for example 'vehicle make code', to be used as a field value, along with justice data model attributes such as 'sensitivity' and 'effective date"..."

• ansi_d20 Motor vehicle administration codes from ANSI D20, the Data Dictionary for Traffic Record Systems, maintained by AAMVA, the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators
• cap Alert codes from the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) version 0.7 Alert Message Dictionary
• census Employment codes from the U.S. Census Bureau
• dod_exec-12958 Security classification codes from Presidential Executive Order 12958
• dod_jcs-pub2.0 Intelligence discipline codes from the Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Publication 2.0, Appendix A
• dod Security level codes from the Department of Defense (DoD)
• fips_10-4 Countries, dependencies, areas of special sovereignty, and their principal administrative divisions from the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 10-4
• fips_5-2 Codes for the identification of the states, the District of Columbia and the outlying areas of the United States, and associated areas from the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 5-2
• fips_6-4 Counties and equivalent entities of the United States, its possessions, and associated areas from the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 6-4
• iso_3166 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 3166-1:1997
• iso_4217 Codes for the representation of currencies and funds from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 4217:2001
• iso_639-2b Codes for the representation of names of languages from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 639-2/B (bibliographic codes)
• iso_639-2t Codes for the representation of names of languages from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 639-2/T (terminology codes)
• mn_off Statute and offense codes from the state of Minnesota
• ncic Codes from the National Crime and Information Center (NCIC) 2000 standard
• nibrs Miscellaneous crime-reporting codes from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
• nonauth Non-authoritative codes for the direction of a person's pose in an image
• can Province codes for Canada
• ucr Crime reporting codes from Uniform Crime Reporting
• unece Miscellaneous unit of measurement code from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Recommendation No. 20, "Codes for Units of Measure used in International Trade"
• usps United States state and possession abbreviations from the United States Postal Service (USPS)
• ut_offender Plea codes and military discharge codes from the Utah Offender Tracking Database, version 2.03