The hawaii criminal justice data center (HCJDC) is focused on the accuracy, completeness, and timeliness of data made available to criminal justice and law enforcement agencies

The Hawaii Department of the Attorney General's Crime Prevention and Justice Assistance Division was awarded a $1,222,927 Cooperative Agreement under the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP, CFDA 16.554) by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics. The grant will fund infrastructure and security improvements, criminal history systems enhancements, and record improvements at the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center (HCJDC) and local law enforcement agencies. Key activities include upgrading hardware and software, enhancing data sharing and electronic records submission capabilities, and supporting criminal history data collection and reporting efforts by the Maui and Hawaii police departments. The award period runs from Jan 1, 2025 to Dec 31, 2026.

The need for robust infrastructures and enhanced security is highly necessary to meet these service goals. The HCJDC is committed to the services provided through the statewide criminal history repository, cjis-hawaii, as data is also transmitted to the national systems via cjis-hawaii. The HCJDC will use funds for the following areas: 1) infrastructure and security improvements. The HCJDC infrastructure is the foundation for the hardware, applications, and network to which the HCJDC provides its services. Infrastructure and system improvements ensure data integrity and system-to-system communication with law enforcement and criminal justice agencies statewide. The HCJDC staff provides both operational and technical services of the division to collect, store and disseminate criminal history to statewide agencies. The HCJDC provides both criminal and non-criminal justice services including fingerprint identification, SEX offender registration, and fingerprint-based criminal history background checks. Funds are being requested to equip the HCJDC staff with the tools necessary to perform their daily duties. These tools include high performance personal computers (PC), monitors, and software tools for system monitoring, application development, high volume scanning and document processing. All equipment must also meet security compliance. 2) criminal history systems enhancements and support. The hawaii justice information system (HIJIS) is continuing its development efforts to provide data sharing capabilities to law enforcement and criminal justice agencies. The HIJIS is highly integrated with the systems that perform fingerprint identification to notify agencies of arrests and provides a means for non-criminal justice agencies to obtain background check results.3) police departments records improvements. The nchip grant provides a means of supporting hawaii local law enforcement agencies with financial assistance for criminal history improvement projects. This year, the HCJDC is partnering with the maui and hawaii police departments on system interfaces and upgrades, and disposition reporting. The maui police department has begun its records management system upgrade to improve data capture and tracking capabilities. IT will include interfaces to better transmit and collect criminal history data. The hawaii police department is focusing on case dispositions. Its staff aims to investigate cases to obtain dispositions and conduct case closures. In turn, these dispositions will be reported to the cjis-hawaii and the FBI national systems.