FY 2022 Pennsylvania NICS Record Improvement Program

The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD), through a sub-award to the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) will use FY22 NARIP funds for three projects: 1) Overtime for Mental Health NICS/PICS Entries - will support overtime for PSP staff to enter mental health data into the Pennsylvania Instant Check System (PICS) which then feeds into the NICS Indices. The mental health commitments are sent to PICS via multiple means, fax, email, or direct web entry. The information contained on the commitment is manually entered into the Pennsylvania State Police Mental Health Database by Clerk Typist 2’s (CT2), Legal Assistant 1’s (LA1) and Legal Assistant 2’s (LA2). Data entered by the PICS staff is then sent back the county mental health agencies for verification and then uploaded, via a web application, into the NICS Indices; 2) Overtime for Criminal History Record Updates and NICS Entries - will support overtime for PSP staff updating criminal history and/or mental health records in order to provide accurate and up-to-date information within NICS. During a Pennsylvania Instant Check System (PICS) background check it may be determined the criminal history or mental health record, of an individual attempting to purchase a firearm or obtain a License to Carry (LTC) is inaccurate and the record needs to be updated. Notification of records that need to be updated are sent from a PICS Legal Assist 2 (LA2) to a resource account, within the PICS Operations Section, where they are retrieved by a PICS LA2 or PICS Legal Assistant Supervisor (LAS). The LA2 and LAS will correct the clarifying disqualifications for firearms prohibitors, merge FBI number and Pennsylvania System Identification (SID) numbers and submit Pennsylvania arrests into the NICS Indices. These include records in which the individual may not have been fingerprinted, state and federal prohibitors, or current drug user information. All of which would disqualify the individual for the sale/transfer of a firearm or an LTC permit. The LA2 and LAS would also be responsible for deleting NICS Indices that are automatically entered by updating the Pennsylvania SID or manually deleting ones that are researched by PICS and are no longer a firearms prohibitor; and 3) PSP Overtime for Record of Sale Data Entry - will support PSP staff overtime to eliminate the backlog of paper files and ensure the most accurate data is available to law enforcement for investigative purposes. Personnel from the Firearms Administration Section will perform the majority of the data entry, manually entering paper Record of Sale forms into the electronic Record of Sale database. Similar bargaining units within the Bureau of Records and Identification will provide support roles for data entry and scanning of the paper Record of Sale forms.