Minnesota's National Criminal History Improvement Program - FY 2015

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 the 2015 NCHIP priority area of updating and automating case outcomes in state records and the FBI Criminal History File, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS), through the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) will manage two projects: automate all records prior to the implementation of the new Criminal History System; and Livescan replacement project.

Minnesota is currently in the process of developing a replacement of the state Criminal History System (CCH). BCA's goal to automate all non-automated records prior to the implementation of the new system which is planned for mid-2017. There are 22,906 Minnesota criminal history records that are not fully automated, making them not immediately available when requested for criminal justice or non-criminal justice purposes. Minnesota will automate as many of these criminal history records as possible by offering overtime to existing staff.

BCA will also use funds to replace 28 Livescan devices which are aged and at the end of their lifespan. These devices reside in criminal justice agencies throughout the state and are used for capturing criminal bookings, to include correctional intake and offender supervision. In September 2014, the BCA was notified by the current Livescan vendor that of their current 180 Livescan devices throughout the state, 160 are considered aged and at “end of life” as of March 2016. The state receives 99% of its criminal submission electronically through the use of Livescans. These submissions are subsequently forwarded to the FBI's Next Generation Identification System (NGI) within hours of the booking event. The criminal submission from each of the 28 locations per year range from 983 to 11,000 per device. BCA plans to create a deployment schedule, taking into consideration the highest risk for failure, and deploy all 28 Livescans by March 2016.

CA/NCF