Directs the division of criminal justice services to accept electronic submission of reports or other information from local law enforcement agencies

Showing the cosponsors who are on Agora, A to Z. The official record may list more.

• Republican2

Shown in neutral colors by design; Agora is non-partisan.

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Patrick M. Gallivan says this is needed

DCJS currently serves as a central repository for criminal justice information throughout New York State. Pursuant to that mission, copies of a variety of records maintained by local police departments and jurisdictions must be transmitted to DCJS, where they are used to iden- tify and forecast trends, research and to share information with the public, other states, and the federal government and between law enforcement jurisdictions. The method of transmission of such information, however, is severely outdated. Local law enforcement agencies must submit paper copies of uniform crime reports, incident-based reports, domestic incident reports, and sex offender change of address forms in print format only. This necessitates law enforcement agencies paying for postage and using up staff time to make copies and address envelopes. And once these forms arrive at DCJS, they must be routed to their appropriate destinations, where DCJS staff spends time manually inputting these paper copies into DCJS systems. This is a labor-intensive, time-consuming process that is wasteful, unnecessary, causes, days or weeks of delay in updating infor- mation, and as a result harms victims and the interests of justice. Most problematically, DCJS forbids the aforementioned records to be transmitted electronically. This is the case even if local law enforce- ment departments have begun planning for the future and investing in digitizing their forms and procedures. As a result of this ban, locali- ties do not reap the full benefits and cost savings of their information technology improvements. In effect, DCJS's refusal to accept electronic records is discouraging innovation in law enforcement record-keeping throughout New York State. In 2011, DCJS announced the launch of a Domestic Incident Report (DIR) Repository, which allows law enforcement agencies access to information critical to identifying patterns of threats and abuse within the home, even when individuals move between different law enforcement jurisdic- tions. This action by DCJS signals the importance of providing law enforcement the most up-to-date information to be able to charge abusers and remove victims from harm's path. However, DCJS has failed to make commensurate improvements in how the information is actually uploaded into the Repository. This legislation asks the DCJS Commissioner to look towards the future and to layout a comprehensive plan whereby DCJS will actively work with localities to reduce the time and cost associated with criminal justice record transmission. This will lead to more up-to-date information available to law enforcement, improve the administration of justice and lead to improved outcomes for victims of domestic violence and other crimes.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.