West Virginia's FY16 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 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 2016 NCHIP, the West Virginia Division of Justice and Community Services (DJCS) will use funds to support administrative efforts and pass through funding to the Administrative Office of the West Virginia Supreme Courts of Appeals (WV AOC) to continue the missing disposition records and scanning projects.

Under the WV AOC contract, DJCS will support the AOC by continually supporting the staff used to address several projects - the disposition backlog project and the WV Offender Case Management System (WVOCMS) continuation project. Both of these projects play a vital role in the ability of the court to maintain and improve the quality, completeness and availability of records at the state and national levels.

While the AOC has made significant progress in addressing the backlog of dispositions in the Criminal Record Repository, there still remains several years backlog on disposition reporting. This incomplete record information is of concern due to the increased utilization of criminal history records for criminal justice, non-criminal justice, and homeland security needs. The backlog is directly related to staffing and resources available to process the incoming disposition forms being submitted by court clerks throughout the state.

The second gap, reporting of indictments to complete the criminal history file, was identified in the AOCÂ’s 2014 NCHIP application. To build upon the efforts, the AOC will continue to collaborate with the West Virginia State Police to hire contracts and staff to support the efforts of the implementation of the WVSP new CCH system. The WVOCMS is the system that collects all demographic information, family and criminal history, assessment information, fees information, incarceration information, drug testing and other identifying information. The system has the capability to house scanned copies of the pre-sentence report, court orders and indictments and record missing dispositions for the pre-sentence and LS/CMI reports. The WVOCMS is the most accurate electronic system to pull indictment and submit case file data with a disposition and a required prohibitor to the WVSP Criminal Record Repository for inclusion in the criminal history file.

DJCS and the WV AOC will be responsible for contributing a 10% match collectively under the 2016 NCHIP grant. (CA/NCF)