FY 2016 Ohio NCHIP Proposal

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 Ohio Attorney General's Office (AGO), Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) will use funds for three initiatives that will update and automate case outcomes from courts and prosecutors in state records and the FBI's Criminal History file in order to further efforts toward full participation in the Interstate Identification Index (III) and National Fingerprint File (NFF).

The first initiative is the replacement and update of the Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS) and Computerized Criminal History (CCH). The replacement of AFIS and CCH are multi-year projects requiring continual supervision and assistance, and therefore project management and process documentation is integral to the success of this project. To ensure a seamless transition, modifications, enhancements and updates are needed to add or change functionality with disposition, biometric, and other related applications that interface with these systems. BCI will address the identified deficiencies to modernize both systems, increase storage size, offer additional functionality and support the latest NGI specifications and FBI Electronic Biometric Standards (EBTS).

The second initiative will improve the disposition reporting rate (misdemeanor and felony information) and data quality for arrest records into CCH as well as III so that final case outcomes are available in both state and national systems. Out of 6,909,307 criminal cases, 2.7 million are felony arrests with 4.1 million non-felonies. Once the criminal cases are disposed, they are put aside for data entry at a later time. BCI staff have discovered through experience that many of the old dispositions do not contain sufficient information to allow the electronic matching to be successful. Currently there is a baseline number of approximately 2,516,034 records missing dispositions.

Through the third initiative, BCI would like to assume ownership of all 354,000 records from the FBI in order to provide complete and accurate criminal history record information to criminal justice and non-criminal justice agencies. The procedure to claim these records is very time consuming. For each discrepancy listed on the correlation report, the OHSID (State ID Number) and the UCN (FBI Universal Control Number) has to be reviewed to establish the exact discrepancy. If the FBI rap sheet contains more arrests than the Ohio rap sheet, then BCI must find the outcome of the case to ascertain whether a request for a copy of the fingerprint card is needed. If it is not needed, Ohio takes control of the record. If the opposite is the case, Ohio requests the missing information from the FBI and then takes control of the record. These two discrepancies comprise most of the correctional report; although there are different discrepancies that may be found on the report which may involve additional steps.

AGO/BCI will be responsible for contributing a 10% match under the 2016 NCHIP grant. (CA/NCF)