Evaluating the potential of technology in justice systems using goal modeling

Abstract

Context: In Canada, the justice system suffers from performance and efficiency issues as indicated by long wait time before trial. Actors in the justice system are seeking solutions involving emerging information technology. Problem: There is need to guide the selection of appropriate combinations of technologies supporting or improving justice systems, yet there is no adapted approach focusing on this concern. Objective: This paper aims to develop the basis of a modeling approach supporting the selection of technologies relevant to justice systems. Method: Goal-oriented requirements modeling is used to describe and evaluate the contribution of technology in the context of justice systems, with the help of an illustrative example targeting the improvement of access to justice. Results: The example shows that it is feasible to model the technology alternatives and their contributions to the goals of different stakeholders in justice systems so that selected technologies are well-aligned with the needs of such systems. Goal models also support trade-off analysis in this context. Conclusion: A justice-aware modeling approach has the potential of helping justice stakeholders to better reason about technology selection and document the rationale of their choices. There are however many remaining challenges in the generalization of the approach to other cases and in its validation in practice.