Summary of Report 96-058

April 1996

Report No. 96-058

The Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS), the State's summary information system on criminal offenders, is not fully implemented and has control weaknesses that affect data quality. Also, the process used to identify criminal backgrounds for prehiring purposes is ineffective because criminal histories in other states are not routinely searched. CJIS affects public safety through decisionmaking by users such as law enforcement agencies, employers, state leaders, and others.

• At the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), the agency has not met statutory requirements for completed development of its part of CJIS, the Corrections Tracking System (CTS). Required information on 260,000 probationers is not included as part of CJIS. Recent studies indicate a significant risk that information provided by CTS is not complete, accurate, and timely. Although the Legislature has required TDCJ to report on evaluation of CTS by December 1, 1996, the agency lacks completed plans to resolve a history of automation problems that affect CTS.



• At the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), the Computerized Criminal History (CCH) system, the DPS portion of CJIS, is implemented, improving, and in fundamental compliance with statutory requirements. However, weaknesses in controls at DPS indicate the risk that criminal history information on arrests, prosecutions, and court decisions may not be complete, accurate, and timely until controls are strengthened.



• The quality of information in CJIS is affected by limited accountability of local criminal justice agencies that originate the data. DPS is dependent upon the cooperation of local governmental entities to provide timely, accurate, and complete data.

Contact the SAO about this report.

Download the PDF version of this report. (.pdf)

HTML Equivalent (utilizing Adobe's PDF Conversion by Simple Form).