VPRS 14415 PRISM (Prosecution Records Information Systems Management) Database

Full description

The OPP began using the Prosecution Records Information Systems Management (PRISM) database in 1996, as a replacement and improvement on the Case Management System (CMS). The system allocated numbers to cases, defendants, appeals, legal advice (on, for example, whether actions witnessed constituted a crime, or whether evidence gathered was sufficient to begin a prosecution), briefings, FOI requests and trials.

PRISM also drew on information from both the Magistrates' Court's CourtLink database and the Criminal Trial Listings database (CLTD). This allowed PRISM users access to an overview of the status of a case, its hearings, victims, offences alleged, appeals, witnesses, sentence, presiding Magistrate, prosecutor, counsel for the defence and other similar information. Its other main function was to produce reports broadly aggregating the activities of the DPP, detailing, for example, the number of cases handled over a time period or which were outstanding, expenditure on appeals, or any other combination of fields filtered by the user.

Officers of the DPP, the Magistrates' Court or even prosecutors might all at some stage have entered data residing in PRISM.

CMS differed from PRISM in that only trials already committed, miscellaneous files, some large advice files and direct presentments were allocated a control number.

The number functioning as the DPP's Primary Key, common to (for example) the several phases of a trial, its co-defendants, witnesses and their contact details etc. was the Magistrate Court Ref[erence]. This number was generated by the Magistrates' Court in CourtLink as an ID controlling all aspects of their management of a case.

The Keywords field was used by the DPP to link any records numbered by the CMS (in the form ZA 1234 or ZB 4321) to records in PRISM.

PRISM was not used by DPP to control routine correspondence, minutes, personnel files, payroll or other administrative records. It was, however, a large and complex database, of which only the most salient elements have been described.