Iowa FY24 NCHIP

The Iowa Department of Public Safety (DPS), Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) requests funds to conduct a project with a third-party vendor to continue to improve the quality, accuracy, and completeness of the state’s Computer Criminal History (CCH) system through several initiatives.  Iowa relies on a network of livescan and cardscan devices for the timely submission of a high percentage arrest fingerprints, with the largest volume agencies using livescans. An increased number of sheriff’s offices and police departments who vary in size from small to large and who vary in number of arrests per year see the importance of digital technology in creating timely and accurate criminal history records via a livescan instead of error prone manually processed fingerprint cards at the time of a subject’s arrest. This deployment will expand upon the state’s electronic submission processes in Iowa by local law enforcement. By providing these new livescans and cardscans, Iowa will be able to avoid a regression to the manual submission of ink rolled fingerprint cards from these agencies. This replacement project will support the state’s efforts to expand upon digital workflows, limit manual entry or re-entry of data, and improve updates to records while also significantly reducing the margin for human error and increasing quality control. Iowa is seeking to continue building on efforts to increase the number of records submitted electronically. Iowa’s proposal seeks to address the priority area of improved identification and reporting of domestic violence and mental health submissions to the NICS through an overall improvement in the quality of records Iowa collects and makes available to the NICS. Iowa seeks to accomplish this goal by improving the quality, timeliness and quality of arrest and disposition data maintained in Iowa’s computerized criminal history records system.