Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2018, $903,500)
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.
Under the 2018 NCHIP priority areas 1 (updating and automating case outcomes in state records and the FBIs Criminal History File) and 2 (automating access information concerning persons prohibited from possessing or receiving a firearm and transmitting relevant records to II, NCIC, and the NICS Indices), the Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP) will administer and conduct a project in collaboration with their partner agency, the Office of the State Courts Administration (OSCA), and will develop case management processes for the new case management system for associate and circuit level criminal cases.
OSCA will use NCHIP funds to continue to support the replacement of the aging Justice Information Services (JIS) with the new case management system (Show-me Courts) currently being implemented. The project will continue on improving the staff and processes through local criminal records audits and disposition cleanup efforts; and focus on automated methods for addressing the criminal reporting problems from partner agencies to the Criminal Records Repository. The development to the case management processes includes: 1) enhancing the initiation and disposition functionality to include associate misdemeanor and felony charges; 2) Post-Disposition activities such as tracking of probation and special programs as conditions of probation and community services; and 3) analysis, design and development for circuit misdemeanor and felony functionality.
OSCA currently has an automated process to report criminal history data to the MSHP on all felony and selected misdemeanor charges through JIS. In April of 2014, the Missouri Court Automation Committee authorized OSCA to begin programming a replacement case management system to be known as Show-Me Courts. In order to continue the indispensable criminal history interface between the courts, prosecutors and law enforcement, upon which many state and federal agencies have come to rely and benefit, it must be included and programmed for the Show-Me Courts system. These modifications will allow for more efficient and sustainable interfaces with other systems using modern technologies.
The current design for case entry and disposition functionalities in Show-Me Courts allows for processing of traffic and ordinance charges. The functionalities will need to be evaluated by business process for misdemeanor and felony case types to determine the level of effort to either create a new process for these types of cases or to enhance existing functionalities to allow for these types of cases to be processed and reported to MSHP. The up-front validation will catch reporting errors that were previously identified in an error log to increase federal criminal history reporting requirements to MSHP.
As part of sentencing, offenders can be put on probation, sent to the Department of Corrections (DOC) long term or for 120 day shock incarceration, given community service, or be required to complete special programs based on the nature of the crime. Show-Me Courts will need to be developed to process all these post disposition activities. It will also need to accurately process all probation revocation activities and completion of Suspended Imposition of Sentences.
(CA/NCF)