Williamson County team honored for its work to digitize evidence

On Nov. 16, Williamson County Commissioners Court recognized several county departments for their efforts in digitizing the county’s evidence program.

Williamson County’s Digital Evidence Management System, or DEMS, was recently recognized with the 2021 Automation Project of the Year Award by MCCi, a Florida-based corporation that, according to its website, specializes in records management and document digitization.

The project was a collaboration between the offices of the district attorney, county attorney and technology services.

“I want to say congratulations to the team [on] the award,” Precinct 2 Commissioner Cynthia Long said during the Nov. 16 meeting. “I recall ... when we first started talking about the implications of digital evidence and what that was going to look like, and it was a daunting task and I appreciate [their] diligence on working through that.”

In addition, the DEMS project—which includes the WilCo Discovery Portal—was honored by State Scoop, a media outlet focused on technology decisions by government entities, as the Local IT Innovation of the Year.

As part of its entry into the State Scoop award, the project was described as offering more than 30 law enforcement agencies a “secure, self-service portal to upload digital evidence” for a county that processes more than 20,000 cases a year.

“It took a lot of people to get this project to work,” Williamson County District Attorney Shawn Dick said. “It took a lot of buy-in and a lot of people to accomplish it ... [and] it has really transformed everything we do.”