NCHIP 2013

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 noncriminal 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 Washington State Patrol (WSP), the state's NCHIP Administering Agency, will use NCHIP funds to complete tasks associated with two projects: 1) WSP will use funds to hire staff to scan and index researched and entered dispositions and to support overtime hours for existing staff to balance manual entries, research and process completed audits, and process all types of dispositions. Based on statistics from NCHIP funded disposition audit research conducted October 2010 through September 2011, dispositions were located for 82% of open arrests researched. This grant will provide funding to research approximately 61,600 records and process approximately 54,600 missing dispositions; and 2) WSP will subaward funds to four county sheriff and police departments for the acquisition and installation of Livescan units to increase the number of fingerprints received by the state repository for ultimate transmission to the federal systems. Currently, many of the persons arrested for felonies and gross misdemeanors by officers of these law enforcement agencies are not fingerprinted due to the lack of accessibility of a Livescan in close proximity to where the arrest occurred. Due to not receiving these fingerprint arrest records, there is a gap in the completeness of Washington State criminal history records. The purchase and installation of a Livescan unit in each of these counties will improve the number of arrest information submissions and ensure the timely submission of arrest cards and fingerprints to the state and federal systems. CA/NCF