Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2018, $2,331,948)
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 2018 NCHIP priority area of updating and automating case outcomes in state records and the FBI Criminal History File, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS), through the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) will manage two projects: 1) CHS Enhancement and Support; and 2) Livescan replacement project.
1) Criminal History System (CHS) Enhancements: Minnesota recently deployed the new CHS replacement system. The DPS was awarded NCHIP funds in 2015 to
automate criminal history records to make them more readily available. In addition, 2016 NCHIP funds were used to add the ability to query III information through
the CHS user interface. With 2017 NCHIP funds, the DPS added 3 more features to the CCH: 1) Court Case Notifications; 2) eCharging; and 3) further III Query
integration. For 2018 NCHIP funds, the DPS intends to continue to improve information available to agencies with 5 new enhancements to the CHS, which
includes: 1) Additional Court Notifications to receive electronic information in real-time, have additional agencies receiving data electronically from the courts, and
create a single integration for retrieving additional court information; 2) Operations and Maintenance to provide support, maintain, and fixes as needed to BCA for
the new CHS; 3) MarkLogic Software Licensing and Maintenance will enable BCA to maintain adequate development, test, production, and disaster recovery
environments for the new CHS; 4) Storage Area Network Expansion for additional storage for its NetApp SAN for the continued growth of fingerprint submissions;
and 5) Virtual Tape Library (VTL) Replacement to replace the current outdated and end of life VTL. These enhancements will help further MNs commitment to
complete and accurate criminal history records for use by criminal justice and non-criminal justice partners locally and nationally.
2) Livescan Replacement: BCA will replace 14 Livescan devices which are aged and at the end of their lifespan. These devices reside in criminal justice agencies
throughout the state and are used for capturing criminal bookings, to include correctional intake and offender supervision. In September 2014, the BCA was notified
by the current Livescan vender that of their current 180 Livescan devices throughout the state, 160 are considered aged and at end of life as of March 2016. The
BCA has taken a phased approach to replace the 160 end of life Livescans. In 2015, the BCA received NCHIP funds to replace 28 Livescans; in 2016 received
NCHIP funds to replace an additional 32 Livescans; and then in 2017 received NCHIP funds to replace another 21 Livescans. The state currently receives 99% of its
criminal submission electronically through the use of Livescans. These submissions are subsequently forwarded to the FBIs Next Generation Identification
System (NGI) within hours of the booking event. In addition, BCA will purchase 2 Livescan machines with state matching funds for a total of 16 replacement
Livescans.
(CA/NCF)