Criminal Justice Information Center briefs committee on LEIN, clean-slate work and audit fixes for offender registry access

Michelle Cleckler, director of the Michigan State Polices Criminal Justice Information Center, told the House subcommittee that CJIC serves as the statewide hub for law-enforcement data and technology, overseeing core systems including the Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN), the criminal history records repository, records management systems, the MICR incident-reporting program and the state's sex-offender registry.

Cleckler outlined CJICs partnership with FBI CJIS and federal programs such as NCIC, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and NGI biometrics. She said LEIN processes large daily transaction volumes, maintains active warrants and missing-person records, and provides officer-safety caution flags to troopers in the field.

On criminal-history and set-aside work, Cleckler described Michigans fingerprint-based repository and both automatic and manual conviction-set-aside processes. "Through our automatic process, there was almost 80,000 convictions that were set aside last year," she said, adding the work included roughly 19,000 felonies and just under 61,000 misdemeanors.

Cleckler also summarized traffic crash reporting: CJIC manages a statewide crash repository with more than 300,000 submissions last year and provides extracts and dashboards to partners including the Department of Transportation and academic researchers.

Representative Snyder asked how IT procurement works and raised an Auditor General report about the offender registry. Cleckler said CJIC follows state procurement via DTMB and uses different purchasing mechanisms depending on the project. On the audit, she acknowledged findings related to access authorization paperwork and said CJIC has reviewed processes, will provide clearer guidance to local agencies and is implementing improved access-control measures.

Cleckler described outreach and public-service components CJIC runs, including expungement/set-aside fairs that helped more than 6,000 residents last year, and public-facing dashboards and iChat search tools; she said CJIC handled millions of transactions and data extracts that support prosecution, licensing, and public safety planning.

The committee took no formal votes on CJIC matters during the hearing; members requested follow-up on procurement practices and documentation of corrective actions for audit findings.