Criminal History Parser Information
Nlets recently completed its Criminal History Parser pilot in partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). As a result, standardized criminal history data for all states is now available to Nlets members. If your agency would like to take advantage of this new service, contact the Nlets Help Desk at support@nlets.org or 1-800-528-4020. Fill out the form below if you would like someone to contact you about implementing this service.
Background
All criminal history information in the United States is provided individually by each state, federal agency or territory's repository. Criminal histories are queried one of two ways. Either the request is sent to the FBI to launch an III (Interstate Identification Index) query or the request is sent directly to the state via the Nlets IQ/FQ message keys. Regardless of the query method, all criminal history responses are returned via the Nlets network and system. A national effort is underway to provide this data in a standardized format. Nlets has managed several Bureau of Justice Statistic grants to facilitate work within state repositories to accept and return the standardized XML formats created by the Joint Task Force on Rapsheet Standardization which are based on National Information Exchange Model (NIEM). Currently 25 of the states plus the FBI are transmitting their records using this format. Through Nlets, consumers of the rapsheet can choose to receive the response records in XML or in text with a standardized stylesheet applied. The 25+ other suppliers of criminal history rapsheets produce significantly different response formats to the end user. With that in mind, Nlets leveraged its position as the gateway for all criminal history response data and now offers a service which programmatically parses data elements from these text-based responses to the Nlets user community. ICE played a crucial role in this project, as they had an immediate need for this parsed record capability and agreed to fund a portion of the work necessary to produce the Nlets criminal history parser and participate in a pilot of the project. The new parsing service has performed well during a trial period and is now ready for wide release. Any Nlets user that is able to receive XML may take advantage of this service which is configured based on ORI. Once the Nlets NOC sets up an ORI to participate, they will receive all rapsheets as fully parsed XML, with the new message keys PFR and PII. For more details or to participate, please contact the Nlets Help Desk at support@nlets.org or 1-800-528-4020.