Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2014, $796,709)
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.
Under this award, the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center (ACJIC) will use funds to continue its efforts of automating court and arrest records within the state's computerized criminal history (CCH) repository. There are currently 2,642,790 arrests already in the CCH repository that are lacking court dispositions. Staff in ACJIC's Crime Statistics and Information (CSI) Division will be responsible for manually researching, matching, and entering disposition information into the CCH repository each time information is requested by local law enforcement agencies, citizens, the FBI, and other states requiring updated Alabama criminal history record information. Alabama is also deficient in the area of capturing and storing county jail information resulting in offenders being released because of a mix-up during a transfer from one county jail to another; county jail personnel not knowing whether an offender is in custody in their facility; or, disposition information not being sent to the FBI for many of the reported arrests. To rectify these problems, funds are being requested to design, develop, and implement a centralized Jail Information Management System (JIMS) for capturing arrest and booking information from all county jails. Law enforcement agencies across the state will have access to JIMS and have the ability to send information electronically to ACJIC, then on to the FBI. (CA/NCF)