2020 National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP)

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 2020 NCHIP priority area 1, for updating and automating case outcomes in state records and the FBI’s Criminal History File, the Virginia State Police (VSP) will conduct two projects to contribute information to the NICS. Specifically, 1) the VA Computerized Criminal History (CCH) replacement project; and 2) the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division and Central Criminal Records Exchange (CCRE) assessment and enhancement project.

VCCH Replacement: the current system has several defects including one major issue in proper validation of criminal court disposition information received electronically from the Supreme Court of VA (SCV), which is causing delays in automatically posting dispositions to the criminal history. The number of defects in the current CCH system is affecting many reporting functions that cause delays and inaccurate records in the state systems that subsequently delay the relevant records submitted to III, NCIC and NICS Indices. The project activities include hiring a vendor to complete two phases: detailed requirements of the new CCH system and detailed design of the system. The VSP will first meet with SEARCH to determine and organize the detailed requirements and detailed designs of the CCH system. The detailed requirements and designs include defining CCH solution configurations and customizations related to workflows, infrastructure, interfaces, data conversion, data quality, and system generated reports.

CJIS Division and CCRE assessment: The CCRE is located at VSP and is the sole central repository for criminal history information in VA. CCRE receives criminal history information from law enforcement agencies, courts, VDOC, and VA Probation and Parole in addition to other sources and agencies throughout the Commonwealth. VSP will use NCHIP funds to hire two contractors to assess and enhance the current CCRE, AFIS, Virginia Live-Scan, VCIN, Sex Offender Registry (SOR), and Firearm Transaction Center (FTC) production processes. The contractors will redevelop and or build new processes to meet quality and streamlined requirements and recommendations, and to design and implement new or modified business processes. The two positions to be hired are a Process Improvement Engineer and a Business Process Analyst. Activities for the project include: developing a portfolio management office to achieve CJIS strategic goals by selecting, prioritizing, assessing, and managing projects and programs; providing leadership management; and conducting training and technical assistance.

(CA/NCF)