FY 2010 Montana NCHIP

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 Montana Board of Crime Control will continue efforts to standardize data collection and electronic information exchange practices to meet national information sharing standards between justice agencies in conjunction with the state's broader e-filing initiative lead by the Montana Supreme Court's Commission on Technology. In 2008, the Commission created the Electronic Filing and Remote Access Task Force that studied and reported on the feasibility of establishing a common central system to manage electronic filing of cases and case related documents in all Montana Courts. The Task Force endorsed the latest Electronic Court Filing (ECF) specifications to bring the specification into conformance with the National Information Exchange (NIEM) Model 2.0. Supporting these findings, funds from this award will be used to develop specific Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD) for system-to-system electronic filings between prosecutors and courts for criminal cases and civil cases of interest (civil commitments), initiated by prosecutors in Montana. In addition, a web-based electronic filing service for prosecutors and law enforcement agencies will be developed.

CA/NCF