Delaware Records Improvement Program

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).

Presently, in Delaware, persons acting strangely that were arrested and taken to the hospital for evaluation have been coded as mental patients by the arresting officer even before the doctor made his/her determination. This information was coded into the state database and transmitted to NICS as person prohibited from purchasing a firearm. To address the problem, the Delaware Health and Social Services submitted to DELJIS (Delaware Criminal Justice Information System) the records that needed to be added to the G4 file. This file contains the records that have been validated by Health and Social Services as true commitments. In 2015, the Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security received funds to match criminal history records in the state’s criminal history repository against the G4 file to check for accuracy and completeness. Funds from the FY 2016 NCHIP program were used to match the records by names in the G4 file against records in the court’s database. In FY 2017, the agency sought funds to search the Superior Court’s database to validate records of person’s having been involuntary committed and to maintain a copy of the record in DELJIS. Funds from the FY 2018 NARIP program tasked research technicians with flagging both the base name and alias names of individuals whose record is being added to the G4 file. Once the records are checked, they are electronically sent to DELJIS, then to the NICS Indices. In 2019, Delaware used funds to add new records to the NICS database of individuals that may have been missed in III or in the FBI database due to a lack of fingerprints.

This year, funds are being requested to continue the efforts of previous awards. Programmers will implement business requirements to coincide with the newly created Lethal Protection Order process and involuntary commitment entries to electronically enter data into the NICS database. On occasion, the Lethal Protection Orders in the Superior Court overlap with domestic violence matters from the Family Court. When this happens, additional auditing and data clean-up are needed. Contained in the G4 File, as prohibitors, are disposition classifications regarding juveniles and adults who are found guilty but mentally ill, juveniles found delinquent but mentally ill, and adults found not guilty but mentally ill. These records will be monitored and corrected to ensure accuracy.

(CA/NCF)