Indiana NICS Act Record Improvement Program (NARIP)

The NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007, P. L. 110-180 ("NIAA"), was initially signed into law by the President on January 8, 2008 (reauthorized by Title VI of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, P.L. 115-141). The NIAA 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 NIAA authorizes grants to be made in a manner consistent with the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP).

Under this award, the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute will transfer funds to the Indiana Supreme Court, Division of State Court Administration’s Trial Court Technology (TCT) Group to improve the number of convictions and the accuracy of the conviction information sent from the courts to the criminal history repository information system called CHRIS maintained by the Indiana State Police (ISP). Indiana statute requires the Clerk of Court to send any criminal conviction information to ISP within thirty days of sentencing. Today, there are three ways ISP receives conviction information: electronically through the prosecutor system; electronically from the courts either from Odyssey, the case management system used by over 282 courts or the Abstract of Judgment database; and, on paper through the U.S. Mail. TCT will use funds to complete three projects. The first project will target the counties that are already deployed on the new court case management system, but that have not turned on the criminal history interface. The second project involves transitioning the Odyssey/CHRIS interface from a legacy interface to a more modern web service interface that mirrors what was recently developed and deployed by the ISP and the Indiana Prosecuting Attorney’s Council. The final project includes the purchase and deployment of ten livescan machines in courthouses to improve the quality and completeness of records at the state and national level. All of these projects combined will improve the reporting of records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

(CA/NCF)