Automated Disposition Record Submission from State's Attorneys to the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation

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).

Under the 2017 NARIP priority areas, the North Dakota Office of Attorney’s General Division of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) will expand upon the work being done by the FY 2017 NARIP team to automate the transition of the disposition data from the State’s Attorney Records Systems (STARS) to BCI, eliminating the need for manual data entry. This project will allow for more complete and timely submissions to the NICS Index. The FY 2015 NARIP project automated the submission of disposition information from the North Dakota State Court to the STARS.

ND State’s attorneys are obligated to provide disposition information to BCI. BCI is responsible for sharing the data provided by the state’s attorneys with the FBI. The disposition data reported to BCI by the state’s attorneys is in the process of automating the reporting of disposition information from the Courts to STARS. Once received into STARS, the current process is to manually submit the disposition information to BCI. Additionally, there is a process in place for BCI to transmit dispositions to the FBI. An automated process for STARS to receive disposition information from the Courts and then subsequently automate the submissions from STARS to BCI would enable the overall process to send data to the FBI much more quickly, accurately and completely.

The new interface between STARS and BCI’s criminal history system will be GRA/NIEM (Global Reference Architecture/National Information Exchange Model) conformant, meaning it will follow the information technology standards required by federal grants. An electronic reporting application will query information from STARS and allow the state’s attorney to review, encode, and submit. A queuing subsystem will be created to transfer submissions from the reporting application to the criminal history system. The criminal history system will be enhanced to include an incoming disposition workflow that will allow a BCI staff criminal history analyst to review and import dispositions efficiently.

The FY 2017 NARIP project will increase the timeliness and overall rate of receipt of criminal history records, including felony convictions, convictions for misdemeanors involving domestic violence and stalking, and drug convictions by automating the transmission of these records from STARS to BCI’s criminal history records electronic repository. This will be supported quantitatively by an increase in BCI’s ability to link a final disposition or case outcome to an arrest at the time of a firearm background check, in addition to submitting qualifying records to federal reporting systems such as III, NCIC and the NICS Index.

As part of the 2017 NARIP priority areas, North Dakota already submits to NICS information on all persons prohibited from possessing firearms for mental health reasons.

(CA/NCF)