Arizona FY 2018 Criminal History Record Improvement Program

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 Arizona Criminal Justice Commission (ACJC) will use FY18 NCHIP funding to address criminal history records information in addition to providing administrative oversight for the following projects:

1) The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office will use 4 FTE to resolve new dispositions that occur during the project period and also offer overtime to eligible staff members to resolve 5,000 backlogged dispositions per month. 2) The Chandler Police Dept (PD) will complete a Records Information conversion project to convert to digital format approximately 1,800,000 paper documents for the years 1968 – 2001 to ensure they are readily available for background checks. 3) The El Mirage PD will review historical documents to determine if the records have been properly processed, and scan the historical documents into the existing electronic records management system. 4) The Pinal County Attorney’s Office (PCAO) will reduce the backlog of missing dispositions for Pinal County cases within the state’s record repository. The project includes funding for 3 full-time contract employees who will work to resolve criminal case disposition backlogs; 5) The AZ DPS will research the pending Maricopa County Superior Court cases for which the Clerk of the Court had never received a final disposition plus any additional cases supplied by any AZ court or identified by DPS personnel during the grant period. 6) The AZ DPS will also use funds to research the pending County Superior Court cases for which the Clerk of the Court had never received a final disposition plus any additional cases supplied by any AZ court or identified by DPS personnel during the grant period. 7) The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) will offer overtime to eligible staff members to scan and quality control approximately 600 boxes of arrest bookings used for court disposition records. 8) The Sahuarita PD will purchase the NIBRS module for their current computer aided dispatch system to ensure they are compatible with all federal systems to assist with the identification of MCDV incidents and final dispositions. 9) The Apache Junction PD will digitalize department records from 1981-2002 from microfilm to a searchable pdf digital file to improve the reporting of dispositions. 10) The La Paz County Sheriff’s Office (LPCSO) will implement a training program followed by a scheduled work program to eliminate the backlog and reduce future errors by at least 90%. LPSCO will offer overtime to review and correct the backlog of dispositions. 11) The Navajo County Justice Courts (NCJC) will reduce the backlog of missing dispositions which in turn will increase the criminal dispositions available to state and federal agencies. NCJC will offer overtime to review and correct the backlog of dispositions. 12) The Coconimo County Attorney’s Office (CCAO) will hire a FT Disposition Reporting Specialist for a period of 24 months to: reduce the backlog of missing dispositions; implement improved criminal history information capture procedures; capture complete data on MCDV; and establish information quality controls.
(CA/NCF)