2016 NCHIP - Washington State

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 Washington State Patrol (WSP) will support five (5) projects: Researching Missing Dispositions, ACCESS - Automated NCIC Record Validation System, Criminal History Record Information (CHRI) Auditor, City of Tukwila and Spokane County ProsecutorÂ’s Office - Research Dispositions and Acquiring livescan equipment for local jurisdictions.

Under Project 1, WSP will research arrests with open dispositions over one year old as they are not disseminated on non-law enforcement inquiries. This limitation creates a gap in reporting and reduces the effectiveness of policies created to prevent ineligible individuals from possessing firearms, obtaining professional licenses or gaining employment in positions they are restricted from holding.

Under Project 2, WSP will implement a system to improve and automate the current National Crime Information Center (NCIC) record validation process for all city, county, state, federal, military law enforcement and criminal justice agencies in Washington State. Currently validations take an enormous amount of time and paper to process, it is cumbersome and time consuming.

Under Project 3, WSP have arrests with open dispositions that were identified in an audit as lacking a process control number (PCN) added to the court record. This singular issue eliminates the possibility that these court records can be sent electronically to the state repository to become available to the public or law enforcement community as criminal history data information (CHRI). The Washington State AuditorÂ’s Office (SAO) conducted a performance audit of the completeness and accuracy of Washington State CHRI databases and it was discovered that one third (81,000) of the dispositions in the Judicial Information System (JIS) and the Superior Court Management Information System (SCOMIS) were not in Washington State Identification System (WASIS).

Under Project 4, WSP will pass through funds to the City of Tukwila and Spokane County Prosecutors Office to update and automate case outcomes in their records and FBIÂ’s Criminal History File through the implementation of improved criminal history record capture procedures. This improved procedure includes, but is not limited to, providing complete arrest reporting, researching of missing dispositions, provided that the captured data is subsequently included in relevant state and federal files, and timely updates. Additionally, through data analysis focused on the completeness of criminal history records, the capture of data regarding domestic violence misdemeanor convictions, and all NICS prohibiting factors, the City of Tukwila and Spokane County ProsecutorÂ’s Office will ensure that these criteria are included in the process to establish more accurate and effective information quality controls.

Under Project 5, WSP will acquire and deploy Livescan workstations for five local jurisdictions. Additionally, WSP will convert manual and non-automated records to electronic records, ultimately, ensuring that records of all criminal events that start with an arrest are included in the state and federal databases. The crux of the problem is that WSP recently converted its computer operating system from Windows XP (which is no longer supported by Microsoft) to Windows 7.

WSP will be responsible for contributing a 10% match to the project. (CA/NCF)