Enhancements Coming to Victim Notification System

Through a cooperative effort, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts and the Executive Office of the United States Attorneys have developed a system that can automatically send crime victims and their families information from federal courts' Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) systems.

Victim notification data is sent from a court's CM/ECF replication servers to the Department of Justice's Victim Notification System. The policy-making Judicial Conference of the United States authorized the electronic feed of case information, assisting the Department of Justice's statutory obligation under the Crime Victims Rights Act.

Nightly transmissions of data from the replication servers will satisfy the Victim Notification System (VNS) requirements for court data and satisfy the judiciary's responsibility to ensure that crime victims are afforded the right to reasonable, accurate, and timely notice of any public court proceeding. In addition, the Department will provide VNS access to probation and pretrial services staff in participating judicial districts, to assist them in performing their duties.

The VNS extraction and transfer process has been piloted in the judicial districts of Colorado and Kansas. The Northern District of Illinois will be the last court to pilot the implementation before national deployment begins in the fall.