Justice Management Division
Serving Justice - Securing Results

The Departments of Justice, Treasury and Homeland Security (DHS) operate a wide variety of communications systems for their law enforcement and protective personnel. These legacy systems have been plagued with problems in recent years, including aged and antiquated technology; insufficient/inadequate communications coverage for today's operations; and channel crowding and congestion/lack of capacity, among other issues.

Justice, Treasury and DHS law enforcement and protective personnel perform varying and complementary types of missions. These operations are made more effective, efficient, and safe through the use of tactical communications. Law enforcement and protective operations require near-instant communication availability and system response, highly reliable communications during emergency or crisis conditions, physical and encryption security features that minimize interception of sensitive communications, convenience, and ease of operation. Operations, at times, also require wide area communication capabilities to coordinate and inform agents executing fast paced situations and investigations.

To meet these challenges, the current IWN design is based on a very high frequency (VHF), Project 25 trunked system utilizing a packet switched Internet Protocol (IP) backbone. Additionally, the system design provides for encrypted communications (Advanced Encryption Standard [AES]). The network presently is based on land mobile radio (LMR) services, and may be complemented by commercial wireless service solutions. In addition, the IWN will be designed to facilitate interoperability with other federal, state and local public safety partners.

Justice, Treasury and DHS personnel represent the majority of law enforcement personnel within the Federal Government and are responsible for fulfilling numerous duties related to national law enforcement, protective missions, and homeland security missions. Each of the components and bureaus has specific operational groups that support a consolidated set of common and unique missions. These job functions and a broad range of user requirements form the basis of the IWN functional requirements on which the high level system design is predicated.

In general, the missions of Justice, Treasury and DHS can be characterized into three categories-1) day-to-day, 2) task force, and 3) special events. Day-to-day operations are law enforcement and protective activities performed by the components and bureaus on a routine basis. Task force operations are joint law enforcement activities that involve multiple components or bureaus. Special events are operations initiated for specific purposes, and range from protective operations (e.g., Olympics) to emergency, mutual-aid responses (e.g., natural disasters, terrorist attacks).

The IWN will deliver the wireless communications services required by agents and officers to support their varied missions. Under the IWN, the requirements of the components and bureaus are used to drive the development of a consolidated system that supports the mission operations of DHS, Justice and Treasury. Development of the IWN will include LMR and commercial services that effectively and efficiently support Justice, Treasury and DHS missions, foster interoperability, allow resource consolidation, and maintain component and bureau control of operations.