---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
created: 2024-04-25
updated: 2026-10-14
tags:
  - Person
  - PROMIS
  - INSLAW
summary: "James M. Etheridge was computer systems assistant director at the Office of Crime Analysis for the 1969 PROMIS design, acting director in 1970, and Deputy Director of the National Center for Prosecution Management from 1974."
---
James M. Etheridge served as assistant director for computer systems in the [[Office of Crime Analysis of the District of Columbia]] during the 1969 effort that produced the [[PROMIS|Prosecutor's Management Information System (PROMIS)]]. The team was co-directed by [[Joan E. Jacoby]] and [[Charles R. Work]], and a May 1971 system overview lists Etheridge among its members as an assistant director of the Office of Crime Analysis.[^3] [[Bill Hamilton]] was project manager at [[Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co]]. Etheridge wrote a 1969 paper, "Design and Development of a Criminal Justice Information and Analysis System in Washington, D.C.," published in the Urban and Regional Information Systems Proceedings, documenting the project.[^2]

In 1970, Etheridge served as acting director of the Office of Crime Analysis. By 1974, he was Deputy Director of the [[National Center for Prosecution Management]], working alongside Executive Director Joan E. Jacoby to expand PROMIS adoption and statistical tools in prosecutor's offices nationwide.[^1] Etheridge and J. D. Bourland are listed with Jacoby as authors of the center's *First Annual Report* (1972).[^4]

### Footnotes

[^1]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report.* House Report 102-857, 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, September 10, 1992.
[^2]: Sessions, Vivian S. *Directory of Data Bases in the Social and Behavioral Sciences.* Science Associates International, 1974.
[^3]: Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co., *System Overview and Report Formats for PROMIS* (May 1971), prepared for the District of Columbia Government Office of Crime Analysis under LEAA Grant No. 70-DF-047, note 1 to the passage on the design team, NCJ 32469. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/32469NCJRS.pdf
[^4]: Jacoby, J. E., Ethridge, J. M. and Bourland, J. D., *First Annual Report of the National Center for Prosecution Management* (Washington, D.C.: National Center for Prosecution Management, 1972), as listed in the bibliography of NCJ 79227. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/79227NCJRS.pdf