Remote accessibility has been a common goal for the professional workforce for the past year, as the COVID-19 pandemic has forced businesses to adapt to public health safety measures. These changes have been difficult to implement on an enterprise scale, and this difficulty is exaggerated for public services such as the justice system and regional courthouses.
These organizations are distinct from private sector businesses by nature of them being public institutions with strict security standards.
When a county court system in the midwestern U.S. struggled to virtualize its processes, it reached out for expert assistance.
That’s where Cisco Connected Justice came in.
With inmates of the county justice system—as well as lawyers, courthouse staff, and the general public—requiring remote access to court services and functions, county leadership was in need of a virtualization solution that allowed for full accessibility without sacrificing on security or violating attorney/client privilege.
Ensuring that this virtualized courthouse solution would stand up to the future stresses that a government network would inevitably experience was also a primary concern.
CBTS, in partnership with Cisco, worked closely with the local justice system to implement Cisco Connected Justice, a suite of virtual conferencing solutions that would allow attorneys to interface directly with their clients via secure courtroom video conferencing, inmates to attend virtual court appearances, judges to confer with lawyers in private “side-rooms”, and more.
Through Cisco Connected Justice, these functions are available anytime, anywhere, from any authorized device.
Additionally, these solutions are built upon a flexible “plug and play” infrastructure that is designed to be easily updated, redeployed, and supported. This ongoing maintenance is critical for any entity that answers to taxpayers and has public-sector security and accountability standards to maintain.
For justice system agencies or government organizations in general, efficiency and ease of access are key. Virtualization solutions that enable courtroom video conferencing, such as Cisco Connected Justice, are steps forward in a widespread struggle to maintain public safety as well as efficiency in essential workplaces.
By empowering the justice system to deliver crucial services virtually, Cisco Connected Justice helped to maintain public health safety, improved the response time of associated government services, and cut various costs, including inmate transportation.
Also read: Improving the remote collaboration experience
For court systems and other publicly-accountable government organizations, it’s vital to be aware of the tools available to enable courtroom video conferencing and the many benefits they can deliver.
Cisco Connected Justice, when packaged with Cisco Webex, does more than simply enabling continuity of operations during an unprecedented pandemic: it grants easy and secure access to the justice system, increasing civic engagement and public trust.
The benefits don’t stop there.
Courtroom video conferencing solutions, when implemented properly, allow detention centers to more effectively quarantine inmates as needed; schedule telehealth appointments between inmates and doctors; arrange for remote educational programming, fully-virtualized court proceedings, and socially-distanced visitation procedures; and more. With solutions like Cisco Connected Justice, virtualized corrections departments and court systems can also remotely maintain rehabilitative programs for parolees.
Contact CBTS for more information on enabling video conferencing for lawyers and court systems with Cisco Connected Justice. Cisco Connected Justice can modernize the justice system for the COVID era.