FY 2016 NCHIP for the State of Maine

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.

The Maine Department of Public Safety (MDPS), Maine State Police (MSP), State Bureau of Identification (SBI) will use NCHIP funds for the automation of manual criminal records. The SBI has a large backlog of criminal fingerprint cards that need to be matched to waiting dispositions. Without out matching neither the fingerprint nor the dispositions are being sent to the FBI for processing. Some of the records are pre-2000; however, newer records are being forwarded to the SBI. The records (old and new) are sent from various jurisdictions and agencies across the state. SBI will use staff overtime to process SBIÂ’s older 70,000+ hard cards and the newer backlog of recent hard cards and consolidate them into an existing record. The overtime staff will prioritize the project by first focusing on felonies, domestic violence charges and sex offenses. This project is a continuation project which received award funds from the 2014 NCHIP program. The 2016 NCHIP project is being funded for an 18-month project period.

(CA/NCF)