 | | Jeni Gamble, representing Appriss Inc. of Louisville, Ky., talks to a television reporter after a presentation of the VINE Protective Order system at the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office last week. The protective order system allows petitioners to access information about their protective orders.
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| Mary Byron died on her 21st birthday.
How she died would become the impetus for a change in how offenders in the criminal justice system would be tracked once they leave custody.
The Mary Byron Foundation Web site discusses how Byron was shot and killed by her former boyfriend in December 1993 in Louisville, Ky., and after her death, county officials and software engineers devised a way to let crime victims know whether and where offenders are in jail or if they had been released. Byron's former boyfriend had raped, assaulted and stalked Byron in late 1993, the Web site said, and he was arrested and jailed for these crimes, but after someone posted his bail, he was released. Byron had no knowledge of his release.
A year after Byron died, the Victim Information and Notification Everyday (VINE) system was implemented in Jefferson County, Ky., allowing people to call and request information on an offender's status. The system eventually went into use nationwide.
Thursday morning at the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office, law enforcement officials saw a Power Point presentation on how a VINE-like system can be implemented in a system to monitor protective orders.
The VINE Protective Order system allows petitioners to get information about their protective orders via telephone or computer and, like the VINE system, it's designed to inform and protect victims. Petitioners can be contacted when a protective order is served or about to expire and they can retrieve other information relevant to their cases.
Automated phone calls will be made to notify people (victims) in a case once an emergency protective order has been served. Should a person's voice mail or answering machine come on, then automated calls will continue for 24 hours until the intended party responds.
Fort Bend County started using the VINE system in 2004. The new Vine Protective Order system will be beneficial because an emergency protective order cannot go into effect until the respondent (victim) is served, or notified. Victims are often unaware of these orders because of the “cumbersome, manual process of creating these orders,” the sheriff's office said in a release. The new system will be user-friendly and dependable, sheriff's officials said, and it can be used by law enforcement and victims.
Thursday morning, Jeni Gamble, representing Appriss Inc., the creator of the VINE Protective Order management system, gave an overview of the new system, demonstrated how it worked and answered questions from law enforcement officials, elected officials and people from other agencies and organizations. Gamble explained that the new system is not VINE, but it is another kind of VINE in which the protective order system comes from courts and law enforcement. The system has unlimited e-mail and phone notifications, 24-7 access and is confidential and anonymous, she said.
“It appears to me it's going to be a real good project that's going to help close some gaps in our judicial system,” Sheriff Milton Wright said.
Gamble said the VINE system provided the template for the high-tech protective order system. VINE is in operation in about 2,100 communities across the country, she said.
Terriann Carlson, spokeswoman with the sheriff's office, said the system works with protective orders, emergency protective orders and temporary ex parte orders.
“To make those three orders work, that requires every organization in the county to put this puzzle together,” she said at the beginning of the presentation.
The VINE Protective Order program costs $35,000, and money to pay for the program comes out of the sheriff's office budget, Wright said.
Carlson said she hopes the program can be operating in one to three months.
“Right now, the sheriff and myself want to make sure that when we do this it's done right and to its best ability,” she said, adding that will entail ensuring that information is entered in a state database and that there is interfacing between necessary agencies and organizations.
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