Arizona NICS Records Improvement Program

The NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007, Pub. L. 110-180 ("NICS Improvement Act"), was signed into law by the President on January 8, 2008. The NICS Improvement Act 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 NICS Improvement Act authorizes grants to be made in a manner consistent with the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP).

The following goals will be addressed with funding under the FY 2014 NICS Act Record Improvement Program: 1) Improve Arizona's record for completeness, automation and transmittal of criminal and mental health records to the NICS. 2) Improve completeness, accuracy and accessibility of criminal history records in the Arizona Computerized Criminal History Repository (ACCH) and FBI Interstate Identification Index (III). 3) Improve completeness of criminal history records used by the NICS by developing system design for implementing a Global Reference Architecture (GRA) and National Information Exchange Model (NIEM)-based data exchange for the electronic final disposition report.

Under this award, the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission (ACJC) in collaboration with the Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Arizona Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) will use funds to: 1) continue support of the multi-agency planning and oversight NICS Record Improvement Task Force and update/modify the Arizona NICS Record Improvement Plan (a deliverable from the 2011 NARIP award) to encourage ongoing collaboration of record improvement efforts among the Arizona NICS Task Force stakeholders; 2) provide technical assistance to fourteen counties in the state that are using the county scorecards for continued assessments of record reporting data gaps and quantitatively measuring performance; 3) conduct research and create missing final disposition report forms for the Maricopa County Superior Court for 2,015 cases and automate 5,000 criminal history records making information available to NICS electronically; 4) complete the design and development of new data exchanges for automation of the Final Disposition Report (FDR); 5) process backlogged and new submissions of Arizona mental health court orders for submission to the NICS Index. (CA/NCF)