Criminal Justice Information Network
State of North Carolina
Welcome to the
Criminal Justice Information Network
Governing Board of North Carolina
Bills Impacting Criminal Justice
Bills that impact Criminal Justice for the 2023 Session (Updated weekly)
View PDF
The North Carolina Criminal Justice Information Network (CJIN), is a statewide infrastructure allowing for the sharing of criminal justice information between state and local agencies. Nationally, North Carolina is a leader in developing a statewide criminal justice information network.
The CJIN Board recommends projects to provide more effective communications for law enforcement across the state. To view the approved Budget for the 2021-2022 fiscal years, please click here for the 2021 Budget and here for the 2022 Budget.
In the 2021-2022 Budgets, several changes were made to the CJIN Board. The board was transferred from the North Carolina Department of Information Technology to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety where it is now administratively housed. Additionally, the CJIN Board was given oversight of the CJIN Electronic Monitoring Program, the language is available in section § 143B-1204, click here.
The CJIN Board is comprised of the most knowledgeable cross-section of criminal justice professionals assembled in North Carolina and possesses a proven track record of success. The membership of the CJIN Board represents both the Judicial and Executive branches, allowing for working together successfully when statewide projects cross over the jurisdictional boundaries.
Information on those initiatives can be found under the tabs below.
CJIN Initiatives
Body Worn Camera and Video
Body Worn Cameras are of extreme interest for Law Enforcement Agencies, Officers, and the public. Due to stakeholder interest, the CJIN Board has been exploring this topic and has gathered information from various sources that will shed light on the status of Body Worn Camera; NC Agencies (pilots, implementation, policies, etc.), Statutes and Ordinances (NC & Agencies across the Country), Presentations and Workshops (Numerous Agencies), etc.
There have been several workshops and presentations given by various members and advisory members of the CJIN Board. Several members of the Justice and Public Safety Subcommittee for the North Carolina General Assembly were present at these meetings and workshops. Following the meetings and presentations, those NC Representatives realized the concerns were far reaching and appointed an Ad Hoc Committee within the Justice and Public Safety Subcommittee to study the issue of Body Worn Camera and thanked the CJIN Board for bringing this to their attention, as well as for facilitating workshops and presentations to address the Law Enforcement Communities’ concerns. Out of these workshops the Justice and Public Safety Subcommittee drafted a bill for Body Worn Video for the State of NC, that Bill on July 11, 2016 was signed into law by Governor Pat McCrory. To view the Law, please click here.
New concerns and challenges have been brought to our attention that we are following along with and monitoring. In the 2021 Legislative Session, Senate Bill 300, now Session Law 2021-138, amended previous legislation regarding body camera footage disclosure. This legislation requires immediate disclosure in the cases of serious bodily injury, as defined in legislation, once requested through a notarized form developed by the Administrative Office of the Courts submitted to the law enforcement agency. The court then receives a petition from the law enforcement agency requesting that the recording either be immediately disclosed without editing or redaction, disclosed with editing or redaction, or not disclosed to the individual(s) seeking disclosure.
The usage of body worn cameras by law enforcement agencies in the United States has grown significantly since they were first used. A 2018 study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that among agencies that had acquired body worn cameras, 86% had developed a formal policy for their usage. Additionally, in 2016 when the study was being conducted, 47% of general-purpose law enforcement agencies had acquired body worn cameras.
As of September of 2021, the Department of Justice launched the first phase of its Body-Worn Camera Program for federal agents during pre-planned law enforcement operations.
CJLEADS
CJLEADS (Criminal Justice Law Enforcement Automated Data Services) serves as a secure database for up-to-date information about offenders for use by state and local criminal justice professionals. CJLEADS integrates data found throughout various state databases to provide a centralized location for data access. The program is a joint effort managed by the North Carolina Department of Information Technology (NCDIT) with the participation of several State agencies and the SAS Institute, Inc. Currently, CJLEADS is fully operational statewide.
More information about CJLEADS, as well as contacts for Customer Support, Training Assistance, etc. can be found on the CJLEADS webpage linked here.
eBodyGuard®
The eBodyGuard initiative aims to enhance safety and security across all 100 counties through the innovative Smart, Safe Cities: My eBodyGuard Program™.
eBodyGuard is at the forefront of personal safety technology, offering users real-time emergency assistance and communication tools that remain operational even if cellular networks fail, utilizing satellite technology. The technology also records event logs as digital evidence to assist in discovery and recovery efforts.
More information can be found here.
e-Court Automation
e-Courts is a North Carolina Judicial Branch imitative to modernize and streamline the court system by utilizing cloud-based technology. The new e-Courts Case Management System will bring the court system off of the mainframe and onto a vendor supported, cloud hosted system. The North Carolina Administrative office of the Courts (AOC) has partnered with Tyler Technologies due to their available Odyssey suite.
The e-Court automation will allow for streamlined administration, greater access to the court system, and a reduction of paper forms increasing digitization.
Previously the rollout of eCourts Odyssey Integrated Case Management System (ICMS) within the four pilot counties, Harnett, Johnston, Lee, and Wake was set to be October 10, 2022. In a September 26th press release available here, the NCAOC announced the delay of the eCourts ICMS within the pilot counties due to several unresolved issues still present.
Currently there has been no announcement of when the new system will go live within the pilot counties.
The eCourts Odyssey Integrated Case Management System upgrades over 40 court applications into a single integrated case management system. Among these are:
- Automated Criminal/ Infractions System (ACIS)
- CaseWise, Estates, and Juvenile (JWise)
- Civil Case Processing System (VCAP)
- eCitation
- North Carolina Statewide Warrant Repository (NCAWARE)
- Discovery Automation System (DAS)
- Court Information Public Records Search (CIPRS)
- Along with several others
With the integration of the new eCourts ICMS, the older systems listed above will be replaced and users will no longer be able to use the legacy systems. eCitation has been replaced by Brazos and went live on April 30, 2021. NCAWARE has been replaced by eWarrants and Odyssey for Magistrates, this program went live on July 22, 2022.
More information can be found on the eCourts webpage linked here.
Information Sharing
The CJIN Board is dedicated to assisting with the various challenges of information sharing in North Carolina. To aid in this, numerous cities, counties, and municipalities have shared with the Board the solutions being used in their region or area. In additional to local information, we also have solutions from other states as well as Federal agencies. Each of these solutions is linked within this website, along with contact information for each of the agencies- agency contact information is provided with every project.
One of those projects was the Body Worn Camera from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department along with a presentation on the CMPD Real Time Crime Center. To see the presentation to the CJIN Board on the Body Worn Cameras, please click here. The CMPD also provided their Directive or Policy regarding their Body Worn Camera, which can be found here. For the Real Time Crime Center presentation please click here.
Any agency that is willing to share the details of their projects can contact the CJIN Staff for either posting the information or providing the Board with a presentation or both.
The following is a sample list of information sharing projects:
- Advanced Authentication
- Charlotte Regional Information Sharing System
- CJLEADS
- Clerk Automation
- Criminal Property Information
- Discovery Automation
- DMV Facial Recognition & Operations
- e-Citation
- Inmate Medical
- NCAWARE
- NC GangNet
- NCIS-LInX
- Next Generation ID
- Pre-Trial Release
- Property Appraiser Information
Details of these and other projects are located here.
LInX Carolinas
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) launched the Law Enforcement Information Exchange (LInX) initiative in 2003. LInX was designed to enhance information sharing between local, state, and federal law enforcement in areas of strategic importance to the Department of the Navy; since 2003, LInX has become strategically important to the United States Army and the United States Air Force.
LInX provides participating law enforcement partner agencies with secure access to regional crime and incident data and the tools needed to process it, enabling investigators to search across jurisdictional boundaries to help solve crimes and resolve suspicious events. LInX is designed to facilitate cooperation and sharing. Ownership and control of the data remains with the agency that provided it.
LInX is organized regionally, with each region having its own Governance Board. There are currently eleven (13) geographical regions and one (1) region consisting of the law enforcement agencies of the Department of Defense known as the Law Enforcement Defense Data Exchange (D-DEx): States of Washington, Alaska and Oregon (LInX Northwest), the State of Virginia (LInX Virginia), the State of Georgia (LInX Southeast), Florida (LInX Florida Regional), the Gulf Coast Region of Texas (LInX Gulf Coast), the State of Hawaii (LInX Hawaii), the National Capital Region (LInX NCR), the State of New Mexico (LInX Rio Grande), the States of North Carolina and South Carolina (LInX Carolinas), the States of Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Maine (LInX Northeast), the State of California (LInX Southern California), the State of Colorado (LInX Rocky Mountain), the State of Illinois (LInX Midwest). NCIS provides program management for both LInX as a whole and for the D-DEx region. LInX contains data from over 1,800 law enforcement sources. Additionally, LInX has a cooperative agreement with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Data Exchange (N-DEx). The combination gives access to law enforcement data with over 684 million records to search from.
The NCIS-LInX System has provided the CJIN Board with numerous presentations over the last several years; including presentations from NCIS Director Chris Cote, Chief Frank Palombo, NCIS Special Agent Tom Goodman, and NGC Director Mark Harris. Additionally, Crystal Cody and Donna Sanchez have continued to brief the Board on the Charlotte Regional Information Sharing System (CRISS) and 52 agencies in that region joining the LInX Carolinas System. Outside the state, the Board has had numerous presentations and discussions with the following LInX Regions – Virginia, Northwest, Southeast, National Capital Region, D-DEx, and N-DEx.
The CJIN Board has been a consistent supporter of the NCIS-LInX System and has approved various resolutions, including expanding the system within North Carolina (currently, over 72% of the state is participating), connecting LInX in NC to N-DEx, work with RMS Vendors in NC to standardized on LInX, etc. Chief Frank Palombo gave a presentation to the Justice and Public Safety Subcommittee in February 2015, highlighting the capabilities of LInX in a live Demonstration. To see the PowerPoint of that Presentation, please click here. This presentation was instrumental in acquiring funding from the General Assembly in the amount of $288,000 which will connect approximately 45 additional agencies in NC to the LInX Carolinas database. The most recent presentation to the CJIN Board on February 4, 2016, outlines the agencies and the plan for expansion, to view that presentation by Chief Frank Palombo, click here.
All the aforementioned presentations, talking points, minutes (workshops, LInX Executive Committee, & LInX Governance Board), etc. are posted on the website – located here.
Colleen Wood, the Regional Program Manager of LInX Carolinas will be providing an update at the December 1, 2022 CJIN Board meeting.
Mobile Driver’s License
Mobile Driver’s License (mDL) and Mobile ID’s (mIDs) are trusted, secure, and interoperable tools changing the identity landscape. ISO/IEC 18013-5:2021 “Personal identification – ISO-compliant driving licence – Part 5: Mobile driving licence (mDL) application” is a draft international standard that is published and ready to be used for implementation.
Across the country several states Division of Motor Vehicles (DMVs), as well as public and private organizations, are piloting and in early implementation of MDLs and mIDs in compliance with the published standard. Some of the first states to adopt the new technology include Arizona and Georgia, followed by several others. Within the year, 10 states will be in mDL implementation.
mDLs allow the individual to decide what information is shared and with who. This new way of cryptographically verifying a state-issued ID allows for the sharing of identity information signed by the State Government Issuing Authority, and the recipient Verifier can electronically authenticate that information.
Within the US, States are the primary issuing authority for IDs. A State’s Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) establishes an identity for residents and issues a physical document such as a driver’s license (DL) or Identification card (ID). A mDL and mID is a secure digital representation of the tradition physical document that is provisioned onto a smart mobile device such as a smart phone.
The usage of mDLs and mIDs opens the door for a new form of digital identity bringing greater utility, convenience, and security benefits to holders while managing their daily lives.
Pre-Trial Release
On September 15, 2022, the CJIN Board Executive Director, Dr. LaVonda Fowler, presented to the North Carolina General Assembly Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Justice and Public Safety. In pursuance to S.L. 2021-180, Section 19A.7B.(a), the CJIN Board is working to combat challenges such as high recidivism, increased domestic violence, and a reduction in public safety with the innovate technology of global position system (GPS) electronic monitoring.
The CJIN Electronic Monitoring Program provides judges with the option to use GPS electronic monitoring as a condition of pretrial release for defendants of crimes related to:
- Stalking,
- Sexual Assault,
- Domestic Violence,
- Violation of Domestic Violence Protective Order,
- and Specialty Court Participants
The program is currently active in 16 participating judicial districts and 39 counties. Due to the funding provided by the General Assembly, the program is fully funded with no expense to the victim and/or defendant providing for an equitable alternative to pre-trial detention while increasing protections for victims. The program is unique in that there is 24/7 live monitoring by a call center where staff works to assist victims and defendants in conjunction with law enforcement.
The importance of the monitoring program cannot be stressed enough. In 2018, the North Carolina Division of Public Health found that roughly 40% of the women who were killed in the State died at the hands of a partner. It is estimated 85% of intimate partner violence victims are women, and a woman is beaten every 9 seconds. Between 2010 and 2016, North Carolina had 745 domestic violence related homicides.
Since the implementation of the program, there has not been a single homicide committed against a program participant while being monitored via the electronic monitoring program.
The full presentation to the General Assembly can be viewed here.
