CRIMINAL HISTORY INFORMATION (police)

 

Criminal history information (CHI) is defined as ”a record, or system for maintaining records, that includes individual identifiers and that describes an individual’s arrests and subsequent dispositions” (Search Group Inc. 2001, 3). Records generally reflect arrests and subsequent processing for the most serious of crimes including serious misdemeanors and felonies. Criminal history records include a variety of information about personal characteristics of individuals, and characteristics of criminal events for which individuals were arrested.

Individual personal identifiers include name, address, date of birth, Social security number (SSN), sex, race, and other physical characteristics such as hair color, eye color, height, weight, scars, marks, and tattoos. Other personal information such as place of employment and automobile registration is included in some situations. There has been an emphasis on also including biometric identifiers such as fingerprints. The completeness of biometric identifiers varies by state. The most recent statistics indicate that approximately thirty-seven states include fingerprint support for 100% of criminal history records (Barton 2003, 3).

Records also include characteristics of criminal incidents for which individuals were arrested including date, type of offense, and court disposition. Disposition information generally refers to final disposition such as a police decision to drop all charges, prosecutorial decision not to prosecute, or trial court disposition such as ”guilty” or ”not guilty.” In 2001 more than sixty-four million criminal history records were maintained in state systems (Bureau of Justice Statistics [BJS] 2003, 3).

It is important to note that not all states include juvenile records as part of adult criminal history records due to increased privacy protections over juvenile criminal records. One of the categorical exceptions relates to crimes involving juveniles who are charged in adult courts. Although juveniles still maintain increased levels of privacy compared to their adult counterparts, there is an increased tendency among states and the federal government to relax such standards.

Creating Criminal History Records

A number of agencies throughout the criminal justice system are responsible for the generation, collection, maintenance, and dissemination of criminal history information. Police agencies complete arrest reports as part of booking processes, which include demographics, personal descriptors, and arrest charges. In addition, arrestees are typically fingerprinted when charged with felonies or serious misdemeanors. The collected data along with captured fingerprints are subsequently forwarded to state central repositories once the booking process is completed. A state central repository is either a law enforcement or criminal justice agency within state government that has been charged with the responsibility of collecting, maintaining, and disseminating criminal history information. Today all fifty states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have central repositories (Search Group Inc. 2001, 23). Additional data elements are subsequently updated to arrest records by prosecutors, courts, and correctional facilities as cases progress through the criminal justice system.

What Are the Uses of CHI?

Criminal history information is a critical decision-making tool used by both criminal justice and non-criminal justice agencies alike. Criminal history information is used by law enforcement during investigations as well as in the field when assessing the potential risk a person may present based on a past criminal history. The courts utilize criminal history information in a number of key decisions such as bail, pretrial release, trial decisions, and sentencing. Prosecutors rely heavily on criminal history throughout a case whether or not to impose enhanced charging or charge a person as a habitual or career criminal. Correctional institutions use criminal history to complete presentencing reports. In addition, corrections consider criminal history information when making classification decisions.

Criminal history information is also used to determine an individual’s eligibility to purchase firearms or possess a license to carry firearms. Provisions in both state and federal legislation place restrictions on individuals previously convicted of certain offenses (primarily felonies) from purchasing or possessing firearms. In 2001, nearly eight million background checks were conducted to verify a person’s eligibility to purchase firearms (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2003, 3).

Increasingly, criminal history information is also used by employers for screening applicants who work in occupations that have access to sensitive information or are responsible for the care of vulnerable populations such as children, the elderly, or populations with disabilities. Some returning convicts may even be restricted from reentering professions in which they were employed before incarceration. Surprisingly, nearly all states go so far as to restrict individuals with serious criminal histories from employment as barbers and beauticians even though many correctional facilities provide this type of training (Petersilia 2003).

Initiatives to Improve the Quality of the Information and Its Utility

Given the importance of criminal history information to the criminal justice community, a number of initiatives have been dedicated to improving the completeness, accuracy, and timeliness of criminal history information. In 1995, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) initiated the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP). Under this program, all states have been the ”recipient of direct funds and technical assistance to improve the quality, timeliness, and immediate accessibility of criminal history and related records” (see BJS 2003, 1).

As a direct result of NCHIP, a number of significant accomplishments have been realized. These accomplishments include increased state participation in the Interstate Identification Index, increased record automation, increased record completeness, increased state participation in the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), increased submissions by states to the National Protection Order File, the development of sex offender registries, participation of all fifty states plus Guam, District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands in the National Sex Offender Registry, and support of nearly eight million background checks annually for firearms purchases (BJS 2005).

Future Issues

Federal and state governments have worked earnestly during the past two decades to improve criminal history records systems. Improvement of these systems is critical to the criminal justice community and public alike. The need for timely and accurate data is particularly important in the wake of national security concerns related to terrorism.

The future of criminal history information lies in two core areas. The first relates to issues of data quality. More specifically, it is imperative for the criminal justice system to work to ensure criminal history records are timely, accurate, and complete. Tremendous efforts have been made in recent years to reduce administrative backlogs and rectify technical problems that hinder such quality. The NCHIP has been an effort directed solely at these problems.

The second major issue that needs to be addressed in the upcoming years relates to levels of automation and accessibility of data. Criminal history data must be electronically stored and easily accessible by local as well as other agencies. The FBI, for example, has implemented the Interstate Identification Index in order to serve as a national repository of criminal history records to improve the level of interstate sharing of criminal history information. Such initiatives hold the potential for dramatically improving the usefulness of such information.

Next post:

Previous post: