2020 Ohio National Criminal History Improvement Program NCHIP

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 FY 20 NCHIP project, the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services will use federal funds to conduct two (2) projects.

In Project 1, OCJS will sub-award funds to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) to continue the conversion of paper criminal files started with FY2019 NCHIP funding, and work with the vendor to convert the remaining 3 million additional criminal records. This will be in addition to 3 million files converted with FY2019 grant funding. This will improve the breadth and accuracy of the criminal history records Ohio provides to NICS, NCIC and III.

In Project 2, the OCJS, in order to expedite the background check process, will add an electronic response functionality to the new CCH system in OBIS. The background checks will continue to be based on fingerprint search submissions, as required by the FBI, and all responses will continue to be returned to BCI directly for verification. The new CCH system will require the capture of an email address on all requests. The electronic functionality will produce an encrypted email confirmation with the complete background results, and upon BCI validation of the results, the complete request will be electronically returned to the requester. (CA/NCF)