Justice stakeholders at the state and local level frequently start conversations to improve processes when incidents that could have been prevented result in harm to the public or the law enforcement community. The purpose of “Guiding Principles” in the Toolkit is to help state and local government stakeholders take those first steps in improving the justice system.
Guiding Principles for improving disposition reporting:
Effective governance is a prerequisite to improving disposition reporting because it relies on the cooperation and collaboration of multiple, independent units of government.
Improve disposition reporting through better use of automation and standards.
The use of biometric identification, combined with unique person and arrest identifiers, is essential to the accuracy of criminal history records.
Information contained in criminal history repositories is important not only to law enforcement and other criminal justice agencies, but also to the public. Data quality impacts the accuracy of non-law enforcement purposes including firearms, employment, and licensing background checks intended to protect the public. Data quality is impacted by the timeliness, completeness, and accuracy of data shared with stakeholder systems.