JSTEPS – Evidence Based Corrections & Treatment
Starting in September of 2009, we’ve been involved in development of tools for research related to the JSTEPS project at George Mason University. The tools will be deployed at correctional institutions and courthouses around the country. The program aims to identify better ways to guide individuals with a history of drug or alcohol abuse, or other criminal behavior, through their probationary period into full recovery.
Dr. Faye Taxman at the GMU Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence is the primary investigator, and we have been working with her team to develop data entry and analysis tools that parole officers and other officials can use with their clients.
Due to the highly specialized nature of the application, we decided to build the database and “backend” system using the Symfony PHP framework. Symfony allows for rapid database development and application scaffolding, and also includes many of the features needed by new, custom applications such as a permissions model, strong MVC (model-view-controller) separation, and support for AJAX requests. With Symfony, we were able to devote most of our time to developing the custom logic and data model rather than re-inventing the wheel.
The data entry screens, using Symfony’s AJAX hooks, are built with jQuery and other Javascript libraries to give the users a large amount of information and many features all on the same screen, minimizing clicking, waiting, and navigating through different parts of the application. Prelude is supplying the database and backend infrastructure with Symfony, but members of Faye’s team are contributing significantly to the user interfaces. So, JSTEPS has also been a productive exercise in collaborative software development.
The JSTEPS application is now in final stages of testing, and we are hopeful that it helps decrease the often negative interaction of probation and preexisting drug, alcohol, and criminal behaviors.
