Warrant Process Flow

A warrant is an order of a court authorizing a law enforcement officer to arrest and bring a person before a judge.

The Significance of Outstanding Warrants

When law enforcement is unable to locate the subject of a warrant, the warrant becomes an outstanding warrant and the information contained on the warrant and identifying information pertaining to the person is entered into local, state and/or national record management systems or computerized wanted person files.

Intrastate notification to law enforcement that a person is wanted on an outstanding warrant is generally the result of an inquiry of local and state justice information systems. National notification to law enforcement that a person is wanted on an outstanding warrant is the result of an inquiry of the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), Wanted Person File.

Sharing this critical information among jurisdictions is essential to protecting public safety.

Warrant Business Process Flow Diagram

Each of the Warrant Capabilities have been analyzed to create Business Process Models. Click any of the blocks in the model below to access detailed information about its corresponding Business Process Model.

The following sample process flow diagrams use Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) to illustrate the primary business process flows supporting warrant business functions:

• Request Warrant (png)
• Request Warrant Update (png)
• Request Warrant Recall (png)
• Warrant Query (png)
• Serve Warrant (png)
• Warrant Issue (png)
• Warrant Update (png)
• Warrant Recall (png)

These diagrams and process flows were used to identify interactions between entities and opportunities for electronic sharing of warrant information. This work contributed to development of five Global Service Specification Packages (SSPs) that can be used by programmers to implement web services to support electronic warrant processes. These five SSPs have been approved by Global as reference specifications that law enforcement, courts and other justice system agencies can use as a starting point for their electronic warrant information sharing projects. These SSPs are available for download from the Global Information Sharing Toolkit (GIST):

• Warrant Issue Service SSP
• Warrant Query Service SSP
• Warrant Recall Service SSP
• Warrant Serve Service SSP
• Warrant Update Service SSP