Increasing North Dakota's Protection Order File Submissions

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.

The North Dakota Office of the Attorney General, Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) serves as the State Administering Agency (SAA) and has been designated by the Governor as the NCHIP applicant. Under the 2017 priority area two of automating access to information concerning persons prohibited from possessing or receiving a firearm, the BCI will use NCHIP funds to expand the current automated protection order system to include orders prohibiting contact, sexual assault restraining orders, and notifications of new orders.

This project will implement three main electronic submissions to be added to the current automated system. The first is the implementation of a method for the Courts to electronically transmit orders prohibiting contact and sexual assault restraining orders to BCI. The orders will be electronically transferred to BCI and incorporated into BCI’s repository of no-contact orders. The second portion of the project is to implement electronic entry of orders prohibiting contact and sexual assault restraining orders from the BCI repository into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) protection order file. All eligible orders will be sent to NCIC and the information will be available to law enforcement nationwide for Interstate Identification Index (III) checks. The third portion of the project is to implement a method for BCI to electronically notify the relevant county sheriff immediately upon receipt of a no-contact order. The orders include disorderly conduct restraining orders, sexual assault restraining orders, domestic violence protection orders, and orders prohibiting contact. The notification will ensure that local law enforcement is aware of conditions outlined in each type of no-contact order. This will also allow for local law enforcement to add information to the NCIC record which may not have been available to the Courts to ensure accurate and complete information is available to identify each respondent.

NCHIP funds will also be used in support of these automated efforts by developing training materials for use in educating the state’s 53 county sheriffs on the new capabilities of the system. This includes a software developer working with the OAG IT/CJIS staff to deliver the technical assistance training to all 53 county sheriffs. The quantitative measure for this is the number of orders with additional information beyond the basic data fields provided by the Courts. Currently, only 6 orders in the NCIC protection order file have been updated with additional information by a law enforcement agency. With the technical assistance to law enforcement combined with the additional electronic submissions, the anticipated target increase of updated information is substantial with additional 53 county sheriffs included. (CA/NCF)