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 criminal justice and public safety agencies and 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, 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 isp provides technical assistance addressing a range of topics including establishing information sharing governance structures, developing strategic plans, assessing technical and operational capabilities, assessing readiness for information sharing, assisting in the development of rfps, and designing information sharing solutions that conform to national standards and best practices. During fiscal year 2021, isp provided on-site and in-house technical assistance to one local jurisdiction, six states, and four national programs or initiatives. 2. Research and publications supporting national criminal justice standards and information sharing: isp staff participated in meetings and conference calls throughout the year serving on multiple national criminal justice standards-setting and advisory bodies. Isp supported two research studies related to the analysis of criminal history data, one research study related to a justice reform initiative, and completed research for a federal program assessing the quality of criminal history data. Isp worked on a publication to support data dashboard development by law enforcement agencies and evaluated data quality for the national criminal incident reporting system. 3. Software development and implementation services: following national standards and best practices, isp supported the development of information sharing software and implementation services for six states, and one national program. 4. Communications interoperability isp staff 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 is building criminal history analytics dashboards for the states of maine, tennessee, and arkansas. This helps determine how many charges are missing final dispositions and answers other questions about criminal history data to improve the criminal history record. Search continues to improve a web based tool to validate nibrs submission for law enforcement agencies. Prior to submitting nibrs records to the fbi, the portal is used to conduct a pre-certification on nibrs submissions to the fbi will get high quality nibrs records with low error rates. The nibrs portal is free for all agencies across the country to use. Search is working to notify supervision officers of any offenders who are moving in between states of warrant related activities. The supervising officers will get automated email notifications when offenders in participating states have activity in the fbi warrants systems. Search is also updating the supervision release files as part of this exchange.”

“Search's high-tech crime training services (htcts) program, renamed to cybercrime and digital forensics, consists of a team of experts who provide technical assistance and training to local, state, and federal justice public safety agencies nationwide. Through training classes, technical workshops, and hand-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 fy20/21, search htcts staff- 1. Trained more than 3,700 law enforcement professionals in 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. Staff also presented at several national or regional high-tech crime conferences. 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 over 300 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. Produces resources to assist law enforcement personnel with investigations involving digital evidence. This included: a. Distributing more that 10,000 publications to law enforcement agencies across the nation. B. Providing access to online training to more than 100 law enforcement professionals. C. Maintaining the search investigative and forensic toolbar, which provides law enforcement professionals with quick links to a vast network of resources regarding technology-facilitated crime. - search staff continues to update the toolbar for the firefox, chrome and safari web browsers. Each of these web browsers regularly change their functionality requiring consistent updates to the toolbar. Between july 1, 2020 and june 30, 2021, the search toolbar is utilized by over 10,000 law enforcement professionals. D. Through search's on-line learning portal (solp), search has continued to provide access to its pre-recorded and live webinar series. 4. Search staff has begun work on a new database called the mobile information knowledgebase ecosystem (mike). Mike provides investigators with information regarding data surrounding the mobile device platform. In addition to discussing tips and techniques for data extraction it looks at individual applications to determine what types of data can be extracted.”

“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 72 short-term, in-house technical assistance projects from july 1, 2020 june 30, 2021. Search staff provided these ta services to 305 individuals in 44 states. Information was provided to six federal government agencies, eight universities, seven private companies, five nonprofit organizations, three national membership organizations and two media outlets. Survey of state criminal history information systems, 2020 approximately every two years since 1989, search, in conjunction with bjs, has conducted and published a national survey of state criminal history repository operations. During the reporting period began conducting the sixteenth of these surveys, survey of state criminal history information systems, 2020. Given dramatic advances in information technology, legislative and social trends that increase demand for criminal history record access, and the need for criminal record managers to respond to these developments, bjs and search conducted an in-depth review of the previous survey questions and developed a revised survey instrument for 2020. Search updated formats for easier response and collection of data and also added new questions to collect information on new and emerging information sharing practices. New focus areas include: -flagging of multi-state records within the state computerized criminal history (cch) repository; -cch performance reporting tools and data quality metrics; -handling of decedent records in cch repositories; -records retention and purging policies for cch records; -bulk sales of criminal history data to private background check companies; -cch record sealing and expungement practices; -volume of records sealed or expunged; and -state-initiated sealing and expungement practices. Search continues to use an online database system to collect more complete and comprehensive survey data. Features include online password-protected reporting forms that allow respondents to complete and submit individual sections of the survey, as well as to examine/update previously submitted portions. Survey of state criminal history information systems, 2018 in november 2020, bjs published the survey of state criminal history information systems, 2018 which was prepared by search. A link to the report is available at 2018 sschis. The 2018 report provides results from a survey of the administrators of state criminal history records repositories conducted mayjuly 2019 for calendar year information ending december 31, 2018. Search surveyed 56 jurisdictions, including the 50 states, the district of columbia, and the territories. All 50 states, the district of columbia, and guam submitted survey responses. Open-source computerized criminal history (cch) analytics toolset staff continued to refine the capabilities of its cch analytics toolset. The tools are designed to assist cch repository personnel improve operations by: 1) detecting data submission anomalies from contributing agencies to identify potential connectivity problems and data quality issue”

“Consultant & contract servcies: program service expenses 529,628. Management and general expenses 92,403. Fundraising expenses 0. Total expenses 622,031. Payroll processing fee: program service expenses 34,953. Management and general expenses 6,098. Fundraising expenses 0. Total expenses 41,051.”

“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.”