To Enhance the FBI NCIC's Ability to Assist Law Enforcement with the Interdiction, Apprehension, and Identification of Auto Theft Criminals

 

Submitted by: Vehicle Crimes Committee

VCC.019.t2017

 

 

WHEREAS, there is a need to revise the data fields within the FBI National Crime Incident Center (NCIC) to assist law enforcement in the interdiction of criminal activity; and

 

WHEREAS, many auto theft criminals are known to be involved in a wide variety of crimes against persons and property, migrating across multiple jurisdictional boundaries (inclusive of local, state, and national boundaries), it is necessary to provide added value to law enforcement for the reporting of a stolen vehicle and its associated recovery; and

 

WHEREAS, minimally, NCIC should have a mandatory requirement for all states and users to: (1) identify the location of a reported stolen vehicle theft entry by Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and/or street address, city, county, state, zip code and (2) identify the location of a reported recovered vehicle theft by GIS and/or street address, city, county, state, and zip code; and

 

WHEREAS, it is believed this practice will provide critical information to law enforcement for tactical, operations, and administrative purposes; and

 

WHEREAS, NCIC should consider adding data fields regarding a stolen vehicle entry or recovered stolen vehicle entry to include: (1) suspect information, (2) vehicle left running, (3) keys in vehicle, (4) cautionary warning related to officer safety issues (e.g., gun in vehicle, dangerous suspect), (5) other crime involved, and (5) rental vehicle; and

 

WHEREAS, this added information will provide standardization of data for assisting investigative and analytical efforts, and further minimize extraneous efforts currently performed by law enforcement, as many vehicle theft entries include this information with manual keystrokes within the miscellaneous field; and

 

WHEREAS, there is a need for NCIC, Nlets and/or NMVTIS (National Motor Vehicle Title Information System) to manage a centralized national law enforcement motor vehicle theft database, originating from entries performed in NCIC; and

 

WHEREAS, this database should be developed with the intention to aid law enforcement administrators, investigators, and crime analysts; and

 

 

WHEREAS, law enforcement administrators, investigators, and crime analysts primarily rely upon local databases (e.g., department, regional) to gain an understanding of the incidence of auto theft crime within their localities; and

 

WHEREAS, many auto theft criminals are known to be involved in a wide variety of crimes against persons and property, migrating across multiple jurisdictional boundaries (inclusive of local, state, and national boundaries), it is necessary to provide a national tool for identifying patterns, series, trends, and hotspots; and

 

WHEREAS, many stolen vehicles are recovered outside the originating jurisdiction of the reporting agency, where a national reporting system would afford law enforcement administrators, investigators, and crime analysts the ability for discovery and identification of criminal organizations carrying out auto theft-related crimes; and

 

WHEREAS, the Colorado Crime Information Center has successfully modeled a statewide information sharing capability that can be duplicated at a national level; and

 

WHEREAS, the purpose of the centralized database should engage multiple data sources for use in law enforcement investigations and analyses to minimize duplicity of effort in searching multiple databases; and

 

WHEREAS, many law enforcement investigations involving auto theft require investigators and/or analysts to query a variety of databases, expending extraneous effort, which could be minimized with federated search capabilities (e.g., NCIC, NDex, NMVTIS, NICB, RMIN, ISO); and

 

WHEREAS, there is a need to negate the automatic purge of stolen vehicles in NCIC, currently performed after the year of entry plus 4 years; and

 

WHEREAS, once a vehicle is entered as stolen in NCIC, barring a recovery or deletion of the file by the originating agency, the entry should remain historically active; and

 

WHEREAS, it is now a common understanding that many stolen vehicles are being discovered outside the parameters of the existing purge time period; and

 

WHEREAS, in cases where stolen vehicles are discovered outside the boundaries of the United States, the lack of active status in NCIC creates a significant barrier to repatriating the vehicles; and

 

WHEREAS, in other cases, law enforcement officers and investigators are expending a significant amount of time and effort in researching stolen vehicles that have been purged; and

 

WHEREAS, it is believed that many vehicles manufactured in the 1990s have a longer life expectancy than was observed when the purge standard was implemented; and

 

WHEREAS, problematically, the re-entry of a stolen vehicle record from purged vehicles creates duplication of records for national statistics used by the National Insurance Crime Bureau; and

 

WHEREAS, it is known that a tremendous amount of time is expended by law enforcement agencies in "reentering" purged vehicles based on the need for continuation of active status or recovery documentation; and

 

WHEREAS, there is a need for all states to provide data to the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS); and

 

WHEREAS, it is understood by this committee that only 35 states provide data and make NMVTIS inquiries before issuing new titles, whereas 8 states provide data, but do not make NMVTIS inquiries; now, therefore be it

 

RESOLVED that the International Association of Chiefs of Police calls upon the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to enhance NCIC's ability to assist law enforcement with the interdiction, apprehension, and identification of auto theft criminal information.