Task force members included senior and nationally recognized judges, court administrators, criminal history repository directors, a director of a pretrial services agency, a prosecutor, and law enforcement officials. The task force concluded that the high and chronic rate of recidivism makes information about criminal histories crucial for many criminal justice and other decisions including prosecution, pretrial release, sentencing, employment, and licensing. However, a substantial shortfall exists in reporting dispositions. Ten strategies are needed to improve this reporting. These include establishing a task force on this subject in each State, automating criminal justice reporting and information systems, developing electronic data interchange technologies, and examining and revising State legislation as needed. Other strategies should include developing procedures to obtain missing information on arrests and dispositions, obtaining fingerprints in all reportable cases, assigning a tracking number to each fingerprint, providing appropriate training, performing external audit, and making funding decisions on a state-by-state basis. Footnotes and appended background information, charts showing State laws, list of task force members, and text of model law
Report of the National Task Force on Criminal History Record Disposition Reporting
NCJ Number
135836
Editor(s)
T R Cunningham
Date Published
1992
Length
65 pages
Annotation
A national task force established in 1990 reviewed current problems and recommended ways to improve disposition reporting of criminal history record information to State central repositories.
Abstract