National Gang Information Sharing Standards Program

This program is funded under both the Edward Byrne Memorial Competitive Grant Program (Byrne Competitive Program) and the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program. Authorized by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2009 (Pub. L. 111-8), the Byrne Competitive Program helps local communities improve the capacity of state and local justice systems and provides for national support efforts including training and technical assistance programs strategically targeted to address local needs. The JAG Program (42 U.S.C. 3751(a)) is the primary provider of federal criminal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions, and JAG funds support all components of the criminal justice system. The JAG Program authorization also provides that 'the Attorney General may reserve not more than 5 percent, to be granted to 1 or more states or units of local government for 1 or more of the purposes specified in section 3751 of this title, pursuant to his determination that the same is necessary ' (1) to combat, address, or otherwise respond to precipitous or extraordinary increases in crime, or in a type or types of crime.' (42 U.S.C. 3756).

The National Justice Information Sharing Initiative, administered by the Office of Justice Programs' (OJP) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), helps improve criminal justice systems and provides national programs and national efforts such as training and technical assistance to strategically address the needs of state and local justice systems and communities.

The Integrated Justice Information Systems (IJIS) Institute will support the sharing of gang information nationwide through development of information exchange standards and collaboration with national partners around best-practice solutions to combating gang proliferation and activity. They will develop a gang information exchange standard (IEPD, or Information Exchange Package Documentation), based on the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) to automate and improve the sharing of gang data across systems and support implementation of a functional transfer of information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Violent Gang Terrorist Offender File (VGTOF) based on the gang standard. The IJIS Institute will collaborate with local, state, tribal, and federal agencies (including the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division, which is responsible for VGTOF, and the National Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC)) currently sharing gang information electronically and identify opportunities for reuse to promote additional sharing of gang information.

CA/NCF