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Bureau of Justice Statistics (2)

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Background checks (71)

In December 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics issued its 16th survey of criminal history information systems. The research was conducted for BJS by SEARCH, The National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics. The report presents data on the functions and status of state criminal history files as of December 31, 2020. The announcement of the report included the following 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.

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