The following states have focused on improving the business functions related to the completeness, accuracy, and availability of warrants to local, state, and federal databases. These efforts enhance officer and public safety by ensuring that law enforcement, prosecutor, court, and corrections personnel have all of the information needed to make decisions regarding the detention, prosecution, and retribution/rehabilitation of the person named on the warrant.
AlabamaIn collaboration with Alabama's Criminal Justice Information Center (ACJIC), the Alabama Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) is developing electronic warrant services to track and manage statewide warrants. The goal of the Alabama pilot project is to improve the accuracy and completeness of warrants in order to reduce the incidence of non-service and increase the overall efficiency of managing and exchanging statewide warrant information electronically.
ArizonaThe Arizona Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) partnered with the Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission (ACJA) to re-engineer warrant-related business processes to foster an improvement in warrant processing and data quality. The goals of the project are to implement a standardized arrest warrant that will replace the myriad variations currently in use throughout the state, to document the business and technical requirements needed to implement the standardized arrest warrant process, and to develop a proof-of-concept eWarrant system.
In July of 2013, the Scottsdale Police Department began entering all new misdemeanor warrants into the FBI National Criminal Information Center (NCIC) database. The department's goals were to increase office safety and warrant resolution and to improve the availability of records for firearms background checks.
CaliforniaImplemented in 1998, the Los Angeles Countywide Warrant System (CWS) automated the issuance, search/retrieval, service, maintenance, and reporting of warrants. CWS interfaces with Los Angeles County trial and traffic court systems, law enforcement agencies, and the state repository at the California Department of Justice, which links to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) to report and manage out-of-state extraditable warrants.
ColoradoColorado's Electronic Warrant System uses the state courts' ICON (Integrated Colorado On-line Network) case management system as well as the state department of public safety's (DPS) Warrants System (WS). Both ICON and WS are legacy mainframe-style centralized databases that are linked together through the Colorado Integrated Criminal Justice Information System(CICJIS), which is a middleware integration and messaging solution.
ConnecticutThe National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Improvement Amendments Act (NIAA) requests state estimates of NICS-related records that are available to the federal criminal justice databases (III, NCIC, and NICS). In an effort to coordinate the contributions of the state's multiple record reporting entities, Connecticut established the NICS Records Improvement Task Force. In 2011, the Task Force received a NICS Act Record Improvement Program (NARIP) grant that, among other goals, included the creation of current "as is" business process flow charts for each of the seven categories of NICS records.
DelawareIn the State of Delaware, all law enforcement use one unified system for documenting all complaints for service including criminal investigations. When any officer in the State, regardless of the agency they represent, investigates a crime and they either apprehend or develop a suspect, the officer documents the incident in the Delaware Law Enforcement Investigative Support System (LEISS). This interactive, module driven user interface allows the officer to collect and document all information pertaining to the matter.
KentuckyThe Kentucky Open Portal System (KYOPS) has a statewide scope where agencies can quickly find criminal justice information, and eWarrants is an application accessible through KYOPS that Kentucky criminal justice practitioners utilize to request, approve, query, view, and service in-state warrants. In collaboration with Kentucky's NICS Record Improvement Task Force, and to improve record quality, the Kentucky State Police conducted a business process review and baseline needs assessment of their warrant management/reporting processes.
PennsylvaniaIn 2005, at the direction of the Governor’s Office, the Pennsylvania Justice Network (JNET), the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP), and the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts (AOPC), began to develop an electronic warrant issuance process for all Magisterial District Judge and Common Pleas warrants. This directive was issued in response to concerns that approximately 60% of all warrants issued statewide were not being entered into state and federal warrant repositories. The primary objectives of this project were to collect, secure, automate, and enter all warrants into PSP’s Commonwealth Law Enforcement Assistance Network (CLEAN) and the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) at the time of Judicial approval. Through this process, law enforcement personnel benefit in two significant ways: a reduction in data entry at the time of issuance and awareness of all active warrants for subjects they encounter.
Allegheny Standardized Arrest ProgramDeveloped at a time when economic resources dwindled, but criminal caseloads rose, the Allegheny Standardized Arrest Program (ASAP) was designed to expedite required court paperwork preparation, electronically share information among law enforcement and other criminal justice agencies, and identify and reduce delays between the time of arrest of criminal defendants and their subsequent arraignment. ASAP generates a complete Pennsylvania Criminal Complaint complying with the uniform statewide template, which is immediately available to the jail, district attorney, and the court. The program has contained costs, vastly improved efficiency and accuracy, and has proven to be a valuable investigative tool.
York County Adult Probation Department's Strategic Technology SolutionsThe York County Adult Probation Department subscribes to the Pennsylvania Justice Network (JNET) electronic notification of new arrest warrants, enabling the probation officer of record to be automatically notified if a probationer is wanted on an arrest warrant. A key benefit of receiving these electronic communications is the immediacy with which offenders are held accountable, resulting in greater public safety and reduced violations and recidivism.