Survey of State Criminal History Information Systems, 2003

A Criminal Justice Information Policy Report: February 2006, NCJ 210297:

Introduction
This report is based upon the results from a survey conducted of the administrators of the State criminal history record repositories in May–December 2004. Fifty-three jurisdictions were surveyed, including the 50 States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Responses were received from all 53 jurisdictions. Throughout this report, the 50 States will be referred to as “States”; the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands will be referred to as “territories,” consistent with prior surveys; “Nation” refers collectively to both the States and territories.

In addition, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was the source for information relating to the number of criminal history records of the States participating in the Interstate Identification Index (III) system that are maintained by the State criminal history repositories and the number of records maintained by the FBI for the States, as of
March 1, 2003.

Major findings

Level of automation of master name indexes and criminal history files Overview of State criminal history record systems, December 31, 2003 (Table 1):

• Forty-nine reporting States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have automated at least some records in the criminal history record file.

• Twenty-five States (Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming) and Puerto Rico have fully automated criminal history files.

Automation of master name index and criminal history file, 2003 (Table 4):

• All 50 reporting States and Puerto Rico have fully or partially automated master name indexes. The Virgin Islands does not maintain a master name index.

• The Virgin Islands has no automated criminal history files.

• Of those States maintaining partially automated criminal history files, when an offender with a prior manual record is arrested, the prior manual record is subsequently automated in 20 States. In four States (California, Delaware, Kansas, and Pennsylvania) and the District of Columbia, only the new information is automated. In Arizona, the new information is added to the manual file. ..For the remainder of the report.. by U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics

Note: Very important is knowing how the criminal system are broken down. Accordingly, see the description of all of the systems.