FY 2015 Guam Criminal History Improvement Project

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 1, the Judiciary of Guam (Judiciary) will use funds to conduct three (3) activities – Data Backfill and Integration Across Databases, Backlog of Court Disposition and Criminal History Records and Updating Guam Police Department RMS database with State Identification Numbers (SID), FBI numbers and firearm registration data.

Under Activity 1, the Judiciary will use funds to fully integrate existing criminal history records in all respective databases. This integration project began with efforts under the 2014 NCHIP and will require continuation efforts of 2015 NCHIP to fulfill the task. In essence, the Judiciary will continually collaborate with the Guam Police Department, the Guam Department of Corrections and the Office of the Attorney General of Guam and the Judiciary's Case Management System (CMS) to ensure that information across the territory can ultimately be shared and accessible to local and national stakeholders.

Under Activity 2, the Judiciary proposes to enter a large volume of hard copy cases going back several decades. In order to protect these paper records from decay, and to ensure that all case data is digitized for easy access and are catalogued and entered into the CMS, the Judiciary needs to increase the capacity of its NCIC Unit. This will ensure that there are sufficient personnel to perform this vital task of entering backlogged case files entered into the CMS.

Under Activity 3, the Judiciary will use funds to enter SIDs, FBI numbers and firearms registration data into the Guam Police Department's Law Enforcement Records Management System (LERMS). The Judiciary is working diligently to becoming III-compliant and, to accomplish this, Guam must first have a system in which they have and can assign SID and FBI numbers to their criminal history records. Currently, the Judiciary is having to manually input and verify the records but, in conjunction with efforts such as Activity 1, the Judiciary is trying to improve the systems and processes that will provide efficiency and accessibility.

(CA/NCF)