Nevada Disposition Backfill and Records Correction Project

The NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007, Pub. L. 110-180 ("NICS Improvement Act"), was signed into law by the President on January 8, 2008. The NICS Improvement Act amends the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 ("the Brady Act") (Pub. L. 103-159), under which the Attorney General established the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The Brady Act requires Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to contact the NICS before transferring a firearm to an unlicensed person for information on whether the proposed transferee is prohibited from receiving or possessing a firearm under state or federal law. The NICS Improvement Act authorizes grants to be made in a manner consistent with the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP).

Under the 2017 NARIP award, the Nevada Department of Public Safety (NDPS), Records Bureau will continue the efforts initiated under a 2013 NARIP award to address the major cause contributing to Nevada’s incomplete criminal history records – missing dispositions. After a statewide review of all court records including mental health adjudications, the Nevada Supreme Court discovered that there were over 900,000 court dispositions that had not been submitted to the Nevada Criminal History Repository in over 20 years. The NDPS will use funding to employ twenty (20) Full-Time-Equivalent (FTE) temporary positions to assist Repository staff with data entering missing dispositions into the Nevada Computerized Criminal History System (CCH) as well as the FBI’s Interstate Identification Index (III). This effort will ensure that final case outcomes will be available in both state and national systems accessed by the FBI’s NICS. Additionally, this team will help correct inaccurate criminal history conversion data and backfill missing electronic disposition information already in the state’s CCH into the FBI’s III system. Currently, the Repository’s has 10 FTE State-funded positions to data enter these dispositions. This grant will supplement those efforts and leverage state and federal funds to identify and match missing dispositions with their corresponding arrests, ultimately, improving the federal reporting of an individual’s criminal history record.

(CA/NCF)