Audit & Training

ILETS is a dedicated data communication network that links local, state, and federal criminal justice agencies to state records and files and to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which includes files on wanted and missing persons and stolen property. The system also provides access to motor vehicle and driver’s license files from all states.

The ILETS/NCIC auditor/trainers train individual users and audit criminal justice agencies on properly using the ILETS system. BCI trainers help assess the training needs of law enforcement agencies and keep agency personnel up to date with the latest system information. Training classes are planned twice annually in each state district and seek to accommodate as many agency personnel as possible.  BCI’s newest remote ILETS training has been implemented statewide through computer-based training and webinars.

ILETS audits are performed triennially and depend somewhat on the agency’s level of involvement with ILETS. Areas examined include proper usage, file quality, agency agreements, policy, and local personnel responsibilities.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Data Exchange (N-DEx) was created to answer the 911 Commission’s call for better information sharing between local, state, and federal criminal justice agencies. N-DEx is a robust unclassified informational sharing system that enables criminal justice agencies to search, link, analyze, and share more than 850 million local, state, tribal, and federal records. These records include incident and case reports, arrest, incarceration, booking data, pre-trial investigations, calls for service, photographs, field contact/identification records, and probation and parole data. Agencies can choose to be data contributors or data users only.

The N-DEx auditor/trainer is Idaho’s moderator for criminal justice agencies and performs user administration functions, triennial compliance audits, and user training. In addition, the N-DEx auditor/trainer performs liaison functions between local agencies and the FBI.

Under state and federal law, the BCI is authorized to provide criminal history records to governmental and non-governmental agencies for non-criminal justice purposes. Non-criminal justice purposes include background checks for licensure and employment, including concealed weapons licensure. An agency must have an approved federal statute/state statute/local code approved by the United States Attorney General or qualify under the National Child Protection Act to receive this information. In Idaho, these agencies include state and local governmental agencies, nonprofit organizations, small businesses, and all sheriff’s offices for CWL licensure. The Non-criminal Justice auditor/trainer is tasked with providing triennial audits on all agencies accessing criminal history records for non-criminal justice purposes, providing training to all non-criminal justice agencies to ensure agencies are accessing and protecting criminal history information correctly, providing fingerprint training, providing assistance with the concealed weapons license application process.

Idaho’s CWL program is managed by each of Idaho’s 44 County Sheriff’s Offices. BCI’s CWL auditor/trainer is a liaison between the State and the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The CWL auditor/trainer provides federal and state prohibitor training and audits each sheriff’s office to ensure accurate background checks are processed before issuing or denying a CWL.

Idaho participates in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, a nationwide statistical collaboration designed to collect accurate crime and law enforcement data from all law enforcement agencies in a “uniform” manner. The statistics collected are used to represent Idaho at the local and national levels, and to produce the “Crime in Idaho” publication annually. The program’s objective is to provide a valuable tool to assist law enforcement in determining their priorities in the fight against crime. Secondarily, the program serves as a vital resource to the criminal justice and non-criminal justice communities regarding the nature of crime in Idaho.

The Idaho UCR Program auditor/trainer provides audits for participating agencies on a triennial cycle. Those findings are used to revise and refine program training methods and support content to promote accurate data and timely reporting for our local agencies.

UCR Data Collections:

• NIBRS – Idaho was one of the first seven states to report UCR data under the National Incident-Based Reporting System, known as “NIBRS.” All Idaho law enforcement agencies participating in the UCR program submit their crime data under the NIBRS guidelines. This collection includes data for FBI topical crime reports: Violent Crime, Hate Crime, Cargo Theft, and NIBRS Estimates (estimated crime).
• LEEC – Law Enforcement Employee Count captures an annual count of full-time sworn male and female law enforcement officers and the total number of full-time male and female civilian employees as of October 31 of the reporting year. This is also used to determine the ratio of officers to population.
• LEPC – Law Enforcement Public Contact data collection establishes a standard national measure of the number of times law enforcement officers have contact with the public. The LEPC is an expansion of annual counts, which includes law enforcement employee counts. This information is collected to provide context to other law enforcement data collections administered by the FBI’s UCR Program, including the National Use-of-Force Data Collection and the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted Data Collection.
• LEOKA – Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted captures data about felonious deaths, accidental deaths, and assaults of duly sworn city, university, and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement officers at the time of an incident.
• UOF – Use-of-Force captures data for incidents involving force applied by law enforcement from a nationwide perspective to provide an aggregate view of the incidents reported and the circumstances, subjects, and officers involved.
• LESDC – Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection is intended to better understand the factors related to law enforcement officer suicides and to assist in the development of programs and potential resources to help prevent suicides.

The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer is the comprehensive national-level UCR program data collection. This includes NIBRS incident data, topical crime reports, and downloadable data for Idaho, surrounding states, and all other participating entities.

The Crime in Idaho website includes archived Crime in Idaho publications and a live, interactive dashboard function that reflects any new records submitted after the annual publication is released. Online dashboard users can run reports and queries on the available crime data. Note: While we can assist in reviewing information in the report, we cannot provide causative interpretations about crime in certain jurisdictions. We suggest contacting local law enforcement agencies for more information or any analysis. For information regarding the proper use of UCR statistics, please review the FBI’s UCR Program guide for promoting responsible crime analysis.

The Idaho Statistical Analysis Center integrates UCR incident data with research and statistics from various criminal justice and community organizations to provide expanded data analysis resources through the ISAC publication library and the Crime in Idaho Data Dashboard.

Crime In Idaho Website

The Criminal History Record Information (CHRI) auditor/trainer meets with local criminal justice agencies regarding a county’s criminal history record process.  The CHRI auditor/trainer provides education to agencies tasked with the submission of criminal history data. Agencies include the police department, sheriff’s offices, prosecutor’s offices, the Courts, correctional/detention facilities, and probation/parole offices. The CHRI auditor/trainer works with the Idaho Supreme Court to ensure that all disposition data is entered into the Computerized Criminal History database, maintained by ISP and all entries are timely and accurate according to Idaho statute. The CHRI auditor/trainer also provides fingerprint training for criminal and non-criminal justice purposes.

The ISP Information Security Officer (ISO) handles the technical aspects of how an agency securely connects to the ILETS network or submits fingerprint transactions. The FBI CJIS Security Policy and directives from the ILETS board are the metrics used in technical security reviews. These reviews include physical security, access control, user authentication, technical security controls, and personnel and media security.