FY2006 Criminal History Improvement Program

The goal of the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP) is to improve the Nation's safety and security by enhancing the quality, completeness, and accessibility of criminal history record information and by insuring the nationwide implementation of criminal justice and non-criminal justice background check systems. BJS provides direct financial and technical assistance to the States to improve criminal history and other related records and to build their infrastructure to connect to national record check systems both to supply information and to conduct the requisite checks.

Under this award, the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center will use funds to:

1) improve disposition data storage, match dispositions from court records to state arrest records, and hire additional staff necessary to plan, supervise and complete the disposition matching project;

2) develop a new arrest-to-disposition automated matching routine for the Alabama Criminal History Repository to acquire thousands of additional misdemeanor court dispositions that must be matched to arrest records. Also, funding will be used to develop a program and system for the Administrative Office of Courts to share court dispositions with ACJIC through a dedicated communications line;

3) eliminate a backlog of fingerprint cards awaiting entry into the AFIS system in a more efficient manner that does not require overtime for current employees of the agency's Alabama Bureau of Investigation (ABI) division. This will allow ABI employees to focus on new requests and entries submitted to the division through the AFIS system.

4) Collect misdemeanor domestic violence convictions for inclusion in State and national files by automating the misdemeanor court disposition system. The project will result in collecting information on the estimated 150,000 unreported municipal court dispositions per year and the flagging of all court dispositions that are related to domestic violence.

CA/NCF