Taking Its Part

It’s comforting to know that the government is continuously looking for ways by which court and criminal records can be easily and systematically accessed.

Many have harbored fears that the proliferation of online court record-retrieval services may have given the government an excuse to leave this need to the private sector. I was therefore elated when I chanced upon a very useful and important project by the Department of Justice on their Web site.

The National Criminal History Improvement Program is not actually new. In fact, this undertaking started more than a decade ago. It aims to ensure the availability of various public records, especially criminal and court files, to the police and other government agencies. This removes the unnecessary impediments that hamper inter-agency coordination as far as accessing and sharing their registries or databases are concerned.

I’ve heard of projects that have been prematurely abandoned due to lack of funding or interest. I’m glad that the government is continuously working on the program despite the fact that it has already accomplished much.