LA Unveils Criminal History Reporting System

Beginning Dec. 31, Los Angeles County law enforcement officers will have access to an extensive new criminal history database designed to tie together eight disparate criminal reporting systems.

Dubbed the Consolidated Criminal History Reporting System (CCHRS), the $7 million system has been eight years in development. It was developed in response to the frustration of Los Angeles judges, who said they were tired of waiting 30 minutes or more for their computers to pull up comprehensive information on suspects.

"The computer system is for the criminal justice agencies in Los Angeles County that will positively, accurately and immediately identify a suspect or criminal defendant based on a live scanned fingerprint," said Judge Kenneth Chotiner. The Municipal Court Judges' Association initiated the project, which was developed by Sierra Systems Consultant Inc. of Los Angeles. The association transferred responsibility for the project to the county's Information Systems Advisory Board, an interagency committee responsible for LA's long-range IT systems.

CCHRS incorporates a 100G Oracle database with records on more than 3 million individuals, including their arrests, court cases, warrants and identifiers. "That database will incorporate 7 million records and will be used by 10,000 different users, including police officers, judges and probation officers," Chotiner said. "We anticipate that, at any one time, we will have 2,000 of the 10,000 users logged on and 160 people actively using the system at any given moment." According to Chotiner, Los Angeles is the site of about 40 percent of the state's reported crimes.