This document provides the results from the 16th survey of criminal history information systems that have been conducted by the National Consortium for Justice Information Statistics since 1989; it includes maps, data tables, major findings on criminal history files and level of disposition reporting, detailed findings of a number of topics including status of state criminal history files and audits of data quality, and includes the survey instrument that was used to produce this report.
This report summarizes the results from the 16th survey of criminal history information systems conducted for BJS by SEARCH, The National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics, since 1989. It presents data on the functions and status of state criminal history files as of December 31, 2020.
Highlights:
- Fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Guam report the total number of persons in their criminal history files as 114,376,500, of which over 95% are automated records.
- In 49 states and the District of Columbia, an average of 69% of all arrests in state databases have final case dispositions reported.
- Forty-nine states, the District of Columbia, and Guam processed 20,302,100 fingerprint records in 2020; of these, about 37% were used for criminal justice purposes and 63% were used and submitted for noncriminal justice licensing, employment, and regulatory purposes.
- Thirty states report having a law or administrative rule in place that requires courts to order persons who have not been fingerprinted to do so prior to or after an initial court hearing.