West Virginia's FY 2011 National Criminal History Improvement Program (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.
The NCHIP administering agency, the West Virginia Division of Criminal Justice and Community Services, will subgrant NCHIP funds to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to complete tasks associated with the following projects to automate access to information concerning persons prohibited from possessing a firearm: 1) implement the Unified Judicial Application (UJA) in all magistrate courts to increase the number of counties reporting data to NICS; 2) develop interfaces to the UJA for the Domestic Violence Registry and the Mental Hygiene Registry to enable the transmission of records to NICS via the West Virginia central criminal history repository; and 3) support staff efforts to maintain the state's Mental Hygiene Registry by providing training and technical assistance, assessing and resolving data quality issues, and monitoring compliance with state and federal policies and procedures. (CA/NCF)