Search Group Incorporated

“The members consist of one representative of each state, the district of columbia, the commonwealth of puerto rico and the u.s. Virgin islands, and eight individuals appointed by the chairperson, known as at-large members.”

“Members each get one vote and elect the board of directors.”

“No committees have the authority to act on behalf of the governing body.”

“The filing of the form 990 is operational so it is reviewed by the director of operations and the executive director, not by the organization's governing body.”

“Upon request and also available on guidestar.org, a website for charity verification.”

“Search's information sharing program (isp) helps state, local, and tribal justice and public safety organizations develop, operate, secure, and improve information sharing within and between jurisdictions. This assistance is provided through consulting services and other resources in the areas of information sharing systems design and development, technology procurement and implementation, and interoperability. Isp performs four core services: 1) technical assistance (consulting) and training focusing on technology assessments, business process analysis, strategic planning, information sharing planning and governance and automation requirements definition, 2) participation in developing and promoting national information standards through research and publications, 3) developing and implementing information sharing automated solutions that conform to national standards and best practices; and, 4) support for communications interoperability and firstnet. 1. Technical assistance during calendar year 2019, isp provided on-site and in-house technical assistance to local, regional, state, and tribal agencies throughout the nation. These activities addressed a range of topics, including establishing information sharing governance structures, developing strategic plans, assessing technical and operational capabilities, assessing readiness for information sharing, and designing information sharing solutions that conform to national standards and best practices. Search provided assistance to twelve local jurisdictions, twelve states and territories, one federal agency and three national programs or initiatives. 2. Research and publications in support for national justice standards and information sharing: search isp staff participated in multiple meetings and conference calls throughout the year, serving on multiple national criminal justice standards-setting and advisory bodies. Search conducted research on behalf of one state, one federal agency and five national initiatives. 3. Software development and implementation services: following national standards and best practices, search provides information sharing software development and implementation services to four states and one national program. 4. Communications interoperability -continued to support national efforts to promote communications interoperability through participation in the firstnet public safety advisory committee (psac) and safecom emergency response council (erc).”

“Search's high-tech crime training services (htcts) program consists of a team of experts who provide technical assistance and training to local, state, and federal justice and public safety agencies nationwide. Through training classes, technical workshops, and hands-on assistance, search trains and assists investigators in methods to prevent, detect, and investigate the rising tide of computer crime, also referred to as e-crime, cybercrime, or high-tech crime. These crimes include fraud, email threats, online stalking, identity theft, phishing, drug trafficking, cyber terrorism, and child exploitation. During fy18, search htcts staff: 1. Trained more than 7,367 law enforcement professionals in 70 classroom and conference workshop settings throughout the nation. The topics included: online investigations: tools, tips and techniques; core skills for the investigation of mobile devices; windows forensic environment for on-scene triage; human trafficking: using the internet to investigate your case; mobile devices: what evidence is available to corroborate your case; searching social media sites for evidence, and more. To ensure that students receive the most up-to-date information and techniques, search staff continuously updates course curricula to include the most recent information and innovations in the field. Staff also maintains the equipment in multiple mobile training laboratories, to ensure that students are working with the latest software and hardware available. 2. Responded to 246 requests for technical assistance from law enforcement throughout the nation. This assistance included identifying the legal contact for various internet service providers (isp), helping extract data from mobile devices, capturing digital evidence from webpages, and advising on digital evidence triage. 3. Produced resources to assist law enforcement personnel with investigations involving digital evidence. This included: -distributing more than 12,566 publications to law enforcement agencies across the nation. -providing access to online training services to more than 100 law enforcement professionals. -maintaining the search investigative toolbar, which provides law enforcement professionals with quick links to a vast network of resources regarding technology-facilitated crime. 4. Continued working on the legal research blog, which provides law enforcement and prosecutors with the ability to research current trends in digital evidence as it relates to case law.”

“National criminal history improvement technical assistance program search's law and policy (l&p) program provides technical assistance to states and federal entities under the national criminal history improvement program (nchip) to enhance and improve criminal history systems and related records. Direct onsite and in-house technical assistance includes supporting states, local jurisdictions, and tribes in: 1) improving the accuracy and completeness of criminal history records to support both criminal justice and noncriminal justice purposes; 2) implementing multiagency and multijurisdictional information exchanges to improve criminal records and to support tactical and strategic decision-making; 3) expanding and enhancing analytical capabilities using existing records management systems and other administrative data sets; and 4) increasing the number of qualifying records submitted to the national instant criminal background check system (nics) index. Search completed 55 short-term, in-house technical assistance projects from july 1, 2018 - june 30, 2019. Search staff provided these ta services to 36 individuals in 25 states. Information was provided to 13 government agencies, 4 individual citizens, 5 news outlets, 2 universities, 2 private companies, 5 nonprofit organizations and 2 national membership organizations. Quality assurance program search's l&p program oversees a quality assurance program (qap) that offers voluntary performance standards for state criminal history repositories. The goal is to encourage the quality and integrity of justice data maintained and reported by these repositories. The program offers a comprehensive inspection tool that state repositories can use to assure data quality. On july 12, 2018, staff met with members of the maine state police to review their responses to the qap checklist and identify potential action items to improve their criminal history repository operations. On october 30, 2018, staff met with members of the louisiana department of public safety and louisiana supreme court to review their responses to the qap checklist and identify potential action items to improve their criminal history repository operations. On november 14, 2018 staff met with members of the minnesota bureau of criminal apprehension (bca) to review their responses to the qap checklist and identify potential action items to improve their criminal history repository operations. On november 15, 2018 staff met with members of the kentucky state police to review their responses to the qap checklist and identify potential action items to improve their criminal history repository operations. On november 27, 2018 staff met with members of the iowa department of public safety to review their responses to the qap checklist and identify potential action items to improve their criminal history repository operations. Following each of the site visits, staff provided participants with a written summary of observations and potential action items discussed during the meetings. Criminal history improvement workshop search, the national consortium for justice information and statistics, in partnership with the bureau of justice statistics (bjs), the federal bureau of investigation (fbi) and the national center for state courts (ncsc) hosted a criminal history improvement workshop in albuquerque, new mexico on april 4-5, 2019. The purpose of the workshop was to bring together multidisciplinary teams from the broad spectrum of agencies that contribute records to state criminal history record repositories in the six states that were invited to the workshop to discuss their challenges and solutions relative to making criminal records available nationally. The states in attendance were arizona, idaho, montana, new mexico, north dakota and wyoming. Representatives included: state chr repository staff, courts, state bureaus of investigation and state police. Specific agenda items included: - how criminal history records are created”

“The organization's processes for oversight of the audit of its financial statements and selection of an independent accountant have not changed from the previous year.”