A criminologist who helped forge the J-ONE criminal justice information-sharing project — which is only 30 percent complete after a dozen years and $11.5 million in federal grants — said it could have been done much faster except for the turf battles among those who will use it.

Instead, it was the most difficult project he has ever worked on, said Ted Kirkpatrick, co-director of JusticeWorks at the University of New Hampshire.

“I often tell people it was like trying to broker a peace accord in the Middle East or solve the schism between the Sunnis and Shiites,” Kirkpatrick said.

J-ONE aims to link law enforcement, the courts, and corrections officials so they can share criminal justice information about offenders seamlessly and instantaneously, seen as the only project of its kind in the country. It will also produce detailed crime, court and corrections data.

“The engineering is there. The technologies are there,” Kirkpatrick said, estimating such a project could be done in a year or two. “If everybody was simpatico, it wouldn’t take long at all.”

There were turf battles, Kirkpatrick said, some based on legitimate questions over the very different — and sometimes duty-bound — missions of law enforcement, the courts and corrections. The many departments and agencies involved will share offender data in real time for the first time under J-ONE.

Some were also concerned about how the new crime data that would be available to the public would be used, whether it could hinder the ability for law enforcement to obtain funding if the statistics showed a reduction in crime, he said.

“An unspoken question when someone discusses gathering data is, are you going to make me look bad?” Kirkpatrick said. “Crime data is very volatile.”

JusticeWorks, which does applied research on crime and criminal justice processing issues, worked on J-ONE in 2001 until its first $3 million federal grant in 2004, then stopped when its grant ran out. JusticeWorks was brought back onboard several years later after it looked like the state could lose the money because it sat unused for so long.

Some wonder whether J-ONE will ever be finished, and whether it is worth the price tag, although it is unknown how much it will cost over time. No one has calculated what the state has paid for state employees to work on J-ONE — at least two full-time and other state employees as needed, according to program manager Keith Lohmann, one of the full-time state employees who took over in 2009.

Although the money has mostly been from federal grants, costs when the system is up and running will likely have to be shared by state, county and local agencies that use J-ONE, said Lohmann, who acknowledged delays but disagreed with Kirkpatrick on what caused them.

“Integration projects are difficult, and the potential upside is very significant,” Lohmann said. “People are working diligently toward the end result, which will definitely be worth it.” Kirkpatrick said it took a leap of faith and enormous diplomacy to bring everyone to the table.

“It is about turf,” Kirkpatrick said. “The courts can be difficult; so can police, and God bless them.”

It is also a voluntary project. Hillsborough County Attorney Dennis Hogan has already declined to participate — despite his desire to do so — because the county delegation wouldn’t pay for computer upgrades necessary to link to J-ONE.

Lohmann said he doesn’t see any turf concerns.

“I would probably suggest that Ted (Kirkpatrick) doesn’t have a lot of experience doing IT projects,” Lohmann said.

Lohmann conceded J-ONE was stalled before John Barthelemes took over as safety commissioner. Centralizing the state’s computer department was another cause for delay, Lohmann said, because state employees were also working on many other important computer projects and upgrades at the same time.

“While the project was dormant for a time before (Barthelmes) took over, we have made great strides toward an end-to-end, connected criminal justice system since that time,” Lohmann said. “No state in the U.S. that we are aware of has an end-to-end connectivity of different components of the criminal justice system for the purposes of query and data sharing.”

Republican House Speaker William O’Brien responded to questions about J-ONE by email, blasting spending on the project.

“Some question how we’re going to craft a budget that doesn’t exceed $10 billion,” O’Brien said. “It certainly will not be done by continuing to fund black hole spending programs like J-ONE.”

Attempts to speak with two state employees with long-term knowledge of J-ONE, Donald Goodnow, director of the administrative office of the courts, and Peter Croteau, the chief technology officer for the Judicial Branch, were redirected to Laura Kiernan, spokesman for the court.

Kiernan emailed quotes attributed to Goodnow and Croteau.

The Croteau quote said: ”The Judicial Branch has completed major components of this work and we are continuing with it. This represents a level of success that most states around the country that have taken on a criminal justice integration project of this magnitude have not been able to achieve.”

The Goodnow quote said: “The Judicial Branch has been working diligently with the Department of Safety and other criminal justice system partners on the J-ONE project since 2001. In 2002 the J-ONE infrastructure was implemented along with the criminal complaint module which connected 38 law enforcement agencies to J-ONE. Our participation was limited in 2006-07 while we implemented a new case management system which now provides the modern capabilities necessary for the functions provided by J-ONE...” An email from Gov. John Lynch’s spokesman, Colin Manning, when asked about J-ONE delays, said: “Gov. Lynch believes technology can do for our public safety agencies what it has done for nearly every other industry — increase efficiency and reduce costs and errors....”

Lohmann identified eight active federal grants totaling $11.5 million, with about half already spent. He is in negotiations with 10 other companies for the remaining work.

Lohmann said the following contracts are under way or completed:

-- Computer Projects of Illinois, $2.3 million contract.

-- The state Administrative Office of the Courts, $1 million to pay for an existing contract the Courts had with Tyler Technologies

-- Abilis NE, $265,000 contract.

-- Imc Division of Tritech, $850,000 contract.

-- Presidio Network Solutions, $450,000 contract.

-- Karpel Solutions, $1 million stimulus grant.

Lohmann said Commissioner Barthelmes “believes that only through the innovative use of technology will the department and the state be able to effectively service the needs of its citizens, given the current fiscal constraints that we all face.”

“As for the end date of the project, it will likely never be ‘over’ since the opportunities for data sharing, and the technology associated with it will continue to evolve,” Lohmann said.

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Nancy West may be reached at nwest@unionleader.com.