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 in their jurisdictions. This assistance is provided through products and services 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 and requirements definition, 2) participation in developing and promoting national information standards and research, 3) developing and implementing information sharing solutions that conform to national standards and best practices; and, 4) support for communications interoperability and firstnet. 1.technical assistance during fy18, 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 jurisdictions in 24 states and one territory. -under the improving completeness of firearms reporting program funded through bja, search provided technical assistance to agencies in the following states: california, hawaii, maryland, missouri, new mexico, oklahoma, west virginia and wisconsin. -as part of the technology innovations in public safety program funded through bja, search provided technical assistance to 9 agencies: baltimore county pd, cincinnati pd, detroit pd, hartford pd, los angeles pd, memphis pd, new castle county public safety (de), seattle pd, st. Louis county pd). -as part of the ncs-x program funded through bjs, search provided technical assistance on nibrs adoption to agencies in the following states: alabama, california, georgia, louisiana and north carolina. Search provided training on nibrs various stakeholder group conferences. Search staff made presentations at the asucrp conference. -as part of the violence reduction project funded by bja, search provided consulting services to milwaukee, detroit and newark police departments. -search provided help to national groups by serving as subject matter experts at a conference sponsored by the national association for justice information sharing (najis). -search continued to support the e-learning course on global federated identity and privilege management. -ncja saa strategic planning funded through bja, search helped facilitate focus groups in developing statewide strategic plan in hawaii, mississippi, and nevada. Search participated regional training tampa. 2. Research and support for national justice standards: search isp staff participated in multiple meetings and conference calls throughout the year, serving on multiple national criminal justice standards-setting and advisory bodies during fy2018. These included: -global advisory/executive steering committee -global critical nontraditional information exchange task team -global services task team -global standards council -nibrs estimation project multidisciplinary review committee -national information exchange model (niem) business architecture committee (nbac) -niem technical architecture committee (ntac) -safecom -public safety advisory committee search isp staff conducted the following research to support the development and promotion of national information sharing standards: -published prosecution case management functional standards. -nibrs estimation project: supported project work by providing subject matter expertise on operational aspect of nibrs implementation. -dhs lens project: statute mapping. -gfipm white paper -published analysis of the criminal justice system's data architect”

“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 1,557 law enforcement professionals in 44 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 61 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 14,000 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. The legal wiki was made available may 1, 2016, to the icac trask force training program, with an initial sign-up of 36 users. This effort is continuing into the next fiscal year. 5. Tools that streamline and enhance investigations are vital to law enforcement. Unfortunately, many of the digital forensic tools available today are very expensive and not within the limited budgets of some law enforcement agencies. To address this growing issue, search htcts staff continues to investigate alternative solutions that will give investigators access to the tools they need at much reduced costs. During fy18, staff continued to explore open source tools, specifically developing a 2.5-day course that will teach investigators how to use open source tools to conduct digital forensics, including investigating a hard drive. Projects created in an open source environment are typically a collaborative effort in which programmers improve upon the source code and share the changes within the community so that other members can help improve it further. Open source tools can be much less expensive than proprietary, third-party tools created by commercial vendors. Search will continue to identify, test, and evaluate open source solutions for digital forensics.”

“Search's law and policy program (l&p) improves public safety by helping federal, state, local, and tribal entities develop responsible justice information management laws, policies, and procedures. This is accomplished through application of experience and knowledge, research, and by national projects that examine emerging trends and issues that have the potential to impact the collection, maintenance, and exchange of justice information. To achieve program initiatives, the l&p program endeavors to monitor and inform policymakers on developments in justice information management; assist in establishing policies that promote balance between societal interests and individual rights; provide policymakers with resources to support the adoption of effective information management policies, procedures, and guidelines; assist operational staff in day-to-day decision-making; and develop resources to improve state participation in the national instant criminal background check system (nics), the interstate identification index (iii, which is the national criminal records exchange system), and other national efforts. During fy18, search l&p activities included the following: national criminal history improvement technical assistance program: this project provides technical assistance to states and federal entities under the national criminal history improvement program (nchip) and the nics act record improvement program (narip) to enhance and improve criminal history systems and related records. In-house technical assistance: during the period july 1, 2017-june 30, 2018, search staff provided in-house technical assistance to the following: -22 states: alabama (2), alaska (2), arkansas(2), california(4), kansas(2), kentucky(1), georgia (1), idaho (4), illinois(1), maine (1), massachusetts (4), michigan (3), montana(2), new jersey (2), new york (2), south carolina (2), texas(1), utah(1), virginia(1), vermont(1), washington(1), and to the district of columbia (2). -4 federal agencies: fbi, united states congress, bureau of justice statistics and u.s. Department of health and human services. -1 university: princeton university. -6 media outlets: npr, scripps news washington bureau, the trace, think progress, the wall street journal, the washington post. -5 national organizations: ijis institute , search membership group, national center for state courts, national conference of state legislatures and the national criminal justice association. -7 other individuals/entities: arnold foundation, code for america, defense lawyers corp, giffords: courage to stop gun violence, highland strategies group, brady center to prevent gun violence and optimum technologies on-site technical assistance: during the period july 1, 2017-june 30, 2018, search staff provided on-site technical assistance to the following: -search membership group meeting at the semi-annual search membership meeting held in des moines, iowa on july 25-27, search staff led a panel discussion on promising practices for auditing agencies that contribute data to state criminal history repositories. During the panel, presenters from alaska, idaho, iowa, and washington discussed the following topics: legal authority for arrest and disposition reporting; criminal history auditing practices; training requirements for contributing agencies; and stakeholder outreach and engagement strategies. Staff also provided a demonstration of the computerized criminal history (cch) analytics tool prototyped developed in conjunction with the state of maine. Staff also presented use cases for using the tool and invited other states to partner with search to use the tool to analyze their cch data and repository operations. Because of this outreach, the following states requested technical assistance to import their data into the cch analytics tool for analysis: kansas, ohio new jersey, and south carolina. Staff participated in the semi-annual search membership group meeting held in birmingham, alabama on j”

“-national association for justice information systems (najis) 2017 conference presentation staff gave a presentation on computerized criminal history analytics. The goal of the session was to show how business intelligence tools to identify potential data quality issues related to criminal history records maintained by state repositories. Staff attended the najis board of directors meeting held in boulder, colorado on february 22-28, 2018. As a result of this meeting, najis will have two sessions related to the national instant criminal background check system (nics) and strategies for improving criminal history records at their national conference in october 2018. Focus groups and meetings: -nchip ta workshop in november, staff met with dr. Gerry ramker and devon adams at the bureau of justice statistics (bjs) to plan two criminal history records improvement workshops. Based on the discussions, search - in conjunction with bjs, fbi and national center for state courts - will host the workshops during the first two quarters of 2018. The first workshop will be held in little rock, arkansas with the following participating states: georgia (host), arkansas, louisiana, and mississippi. The second location has not been determined, but bjs anticipates inviting montana, north dakota, south dakota, and wyoming. Meeting invitees will include: state criminal history repository staff, police and sheriffs' associations, judges' associations, prosecutors' associations, and jail/corrections associations. -criminal history improvement workshop - little rock, ar (search #4137) search, in conjunction 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 little rock, arkansas on may 31 june 1, 2018. The purpose of the workshop was to bring together multidisciplinary teams from the various agencies that contribute records to state computerized criminal history (cch) repositories in the eight 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: alabama, arkansas, georgia, louisiana, mississippi, oklahoma, louisiana, tennessee and texas. Fifty-two people attended the workshop and representatives included: state cch repository staff, courts, state bureaus of investigation, state police, local law enforcement, prosecutors and crime information centers. Specific agenda items included: -how criminal history records are created and maintained -how criminal history records are used for both criminal and noncriminal justice purposes -respective roles of law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, jails, prisons and community supervision agencies in contributing data to the criminal history record -challenges and promising practices for disposition reporting -state and federal disqualifiers for purchasing firearms -the fbi's national instant criminal background check system (nics) -funding opportunities to support criminal history records improvement projects data collection and publication of criminal history-related surveys and materials: -2016 repository operations survey during july 2017, staff continued efforts to review and perform quality control checks and resolve discrepancies with states submitting data for the 2016 survey. Follow-up telephone conversations and emails were sent to states when discrepancies and outliers were discovered. Staff began entering data received from each respondent onto reporting table templates and began work on drafting final report. From august to september, staff continued efforts to review and perform quality control checks and resolve discrepancies with states submitting data for the 2016 survey. Follow-up telephone conversations were made, and emails were sent to states when discrepancies and outliers were discovered. Entry of data received from each respondent onto reporti”

“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.”