FY 2023 West Virginia NARIP

The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia (“Court”), through its state central administrative office, will use funds to expand West Virginia’s Records Improvement Project. The purpose of this statewide project is to continue to identify, flag, and make immediately accessible prohibiting records to the NICS. Primary project activities include specialized staff who assess WV courts’ capability to automate and others who research and transmit court orders, dispositions, and mental health adjudications and commitments to federal and state record repositories. Additional activities include training and to make Livescan capabilities available in more county courthouses. Expected outcomes include automation of misdemeanor and felony data from arrest to conviction, complete with real-time submission to the state repository, which is already available to NICS and a complete assessment of how to unify all court recordkeeping systems to provide easier access to current prohibiting information. WV spent recent years redesigning its plan and shifting its focus to proactive efforts to reduce the nearly 5,000 new CDRs that are submitted per month from courts to the state’s central repository. All state stakeholders are now focused on a common goal: to automate the criminal record creation process. With the integration of electronic systems, it is critical to have dedicated personnel who provide data quality analysis and oversight.