Judicial Technology and Automation Committee
Division of State Court Administration
30 S. Meridian Street, Ste. 500
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Mary DePrez
Director and Counsel for Trial Court Technology
Pho: 317.234.2604
mdeprez@jtac.in.gov
Electronic Citation and Warning System (eCWS)
Project Overview
Approximately 1,000,000 traffic citations are issued in Indiana every year. Now that eCWS is in production, law enforcement agencies using the system can electronically print tickets at the time of a traffic stop. Other officers are still hand writing citations and the forms used vary from county to county. eCWS lets officers electronically record citation information in the field, eliminating the need for redundant manual data entry, drastically reducing administrative work, and increasing the safety of Hoosier roadways by quickly identifying dangerous drivers and reducing the time needed for a traffic stop.
The Indiana Supreme Court’s Judicial Technology and Automation Committee, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Indiana Criminal Justice Institute, Indiana State Police, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Indiana State Excise Police and local law enforcement agencies worked together to give law enforcement officers statewide the ability to produce tickets electronically at the time of a traffic stop. Data can be transmitted electronically to appropriate law enforcement, courts, and state and federal agencies. eCWS will, in the future, also transfer the required data fields to a probable cause affidavit form for officers to complete in cases of serious criminal violations.
The eCWS system is currently being used by Indiana State Police officers statewide and officers in over 300 other law enforcement agencies. The application is available in a laptop computer version for patrol cars. A hand-held portable version for motorcycle officers or foot patrol is currently being used by ISP motorcycle troopers, Indiana Excise Police, and 20 local law enforcement agencies in the field. eCWS and training is available to law enforcement at no cost.
How It Works
Officers use a scanner to read the drivers license and vehicle registration. A new citation is then generated in the eCWS system with the driver’s information automatically entered. The officer records the appropriate offenses and court information and prints a paper ticket for the offender.
In cooperation with the U. S. Department of Transportation, eCWS produces a Uniform Traffic Ticket (UTT) that identifies Commercial Drivers. The electronic information recorded by the officer will be transmitted to courts and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in later phases of this project. All citation and warning information is uploaded to the eCWS Central Repository and made available to the appropriate judicial and law enforcement officials so the most up-to-date data is available. Because they will, in the future, have access to more timely data, an officer in one county may determine that a warning is not appropriate if the same driver was given a warning the week before in another county.
The eCWS initiative is an addition to and the ‘next step’ in the JTAC-BMV project, which allows courts and clerks to transmit serious infractions by a commercial driver to the BMV electronically instead of by mail or fax.
Benefits of eCWS
- Eliminates handwritten tickets and the need to enter the same information into a separate database(s)
- Enhances safety of Hoosier streets and highways by identifying dangerous drivers quickly
- Eliminates duplicate entries by law enforcement, courts, clerks, ISP and BMV
- Increases accuracy of information—data fields pre-populated from license and registration
- Reduces errors because data is not retyped multiple times
- Gives officers more time to patrol by reducing paperwork
- Saves clerical time for clerks, courts and agencies because data is transferred electronically
- Improves timeliness by making data available electronically
More Information
Contact Information
For more information, contact Annette Page at apage@jtac.in.gov, 317.234.3064 or (toll free) 888.275.5822.
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