Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2024, $551,461)
Under this award, the Idaho State Police, Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) requests funds to pilot a program that provides law enforcement with mobile identification devices to remotely upload criminal charges to a person’s criminal history record and fingerprint images into the Western Identification Network (WIN) database. The purpose of this grant request is to capture arrest charges that are being missed due to increasing “cite and release” and summons events, whereas ten print arrest fingerprint cards are not completed and submitted to BCI for inclusion into the state’s criminal history records. The increase in these events is due to varying reasons, including overcrowding at jails; limited staffing at arrest and booking agencies; geographical location of the incident; etc. BCI will purchase and deploy 55 mobile livescan identification devices to several law enforcement agencies, county sheriff’s offices, and city police departments throughout Idaho. These devices will provide biometric identification of persons entered into the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Repository for Individuals of Special Concern (RISC) and the electronic submission of field arrests with ten-print capture will ensure accurate criminal history reporting and help close the gap between the number of individuals cited and released, or summonsed, without a fingerprint record. The expected outcome of this pilot program is that capturing arrest events will improve the timeliness, accuracy, and completeness of Idaho’s criminal history records repository. After the completion of the one-year grant project, each law enforcement agency opting to continue the use of the device will be responsible for any ongoing maintenance costs. The service area for this pilot program will be spread across the six Idaho State Police districts.