Assistance program
National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP)
$460.8 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Office of Justice Programs, Justice, Department of
- Assistance
- Cooperative Agreements
- CFDA number
- 16.554
- What it does
- GOAL(S): Ensuring the quality and completeness of the nation’s criminal history record systems by providing financial and technical assistance to states and tribes for the establishment or improvement of computerized criminal history record systems and related systems capturing data on mental health and protective orders. OBJECTIVE(S): Objective 1: Improve criminal history record systems in the U.S. states and territories to support background checks for the purposes of identifying ineligible firearm purchases and persons ineligible to hold positions involving children, the elderly, or the disabled. Performance Measure 1: Percentage of state or tribal records that are automated. 2) Ensure the development of the infrastructure connects each state’s and tribe’s record systems to national records and connects each state’s background check databases to other states. Performance Measure 1: Percentage of records accessible through the III; Performance Measure 2: Number of states and tribes submitting records to the FBI’s III and NICS Indices; Performance Measure 3: Number of states and tribes participating in the FBI’s NGI fingerprint capture, POF, and Wanted Persons File.
- Who benefits
- Funds awarded to the state or tribe may be allocated for use in state or local/tribal agencies or the courts, but should have an impact on national record systems. Private organizations may receive funds under contract arrangements with a state/tribal agency or its subgrantees to which NCHIP funds are allocated by the state/tribe.
- Who applies
- Applicants are limited to the agency designated by the governor in each state to administer the NCHIP program, state court systems, and federally recognized tribal entities. States and tribes may choose to submit applications as part of a multi-state consortium, multi-tribe consortium, or other entity. In such cases, please contact your BJS program manager for further information.
- Authorized by
- Public Law 105-251, the Crime Identification Technology Act of 1998 (codified at 42 U.S.C. 14601 et seq.); 42 U.S.C. 3732.
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments