Criminal Justice Information Services is the state's criminal history information repository. It provides criminal identification screening to criminal justice agencies, non-criminal justice agencies, and private citizens to identify persons with criminal warrants, arrests, and convictions that impact employment, licensing, and eligibility to purchase a firearm, as well as a variety of criminal justice functions.

The program also provides criminal statistical information for use by policy makers and that is of interest to the public, including the compilation of Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and hate crime information collected from local law enforcement agencies. The program also helps ensure the quality of the data available on the Florida Crime Information Center (FCIC) system and aids in the development of policy for national sharing of criminal justice information with the FBI and other states. 

• Criminal History Information. This service is provided to criminal justice agencies, non-criminal justice agencies, and private citizens to obtain individual criminal history information. In Fiscal Year 2019-20, the program processed over 3.7 million criminal history record checks. In Fiscal Year 2018-19, the program processed over 3.7 million criminal history checks as well.
• FALCON. This system identifies criminal suspects and reports data. Through a web portal, users are able to perform tasks related to the management of applicant fingerprints retained by FDLE when organizations submit criminal history background check requests. Applicants retained in FALCON are compared to incoming Florida arrest fingerprints. When the fingerprints match, the organization that submitted the individual is notified of the arrest. 

Florida Statistical Analysis Center (FSAC). FDLE analyzes criminal justice data and prepares reports for a wide range of users, including policymakers, planners, academicians, media, students, and other interested in researching crime in Florida. The center also facilitates the use of Uniform Crime Report data gathered from across the state.

• Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse. FDLE provides a clearinghouse of information on missing endangered persons to assist law enforcement and the public in recovering missing children and adults. The clearinghouse incorporates AMBER Alerts for abducted children, Missing Child Alerts for missing children, and Silver Alerts for missing persons who have irreversible deterioration of intellectual faculties. During Fiscal Year 2019-20, there were 26,956 missing person intelligence checks conducted, a slight increase from Fiscal Year 2018-19, when there were 26,168 missing person intelligence checks conducted.
  

Sexual Offender and Predator Tracking and Information. FDLE collects and maintains information on Florida's registered sexual offenders and predators. The registry contains public record information on offenders classified as sexual predators and sexual offenders under Florida law because of a conviction for a sex-related crime. This information is made available to interested citizens to help them educate themselves about the possible presence of such offenders in their local communities. Currently, there are approximately 79,000 registered sexual offenders and predators throughout Florida. It should be noted that a sexual offender and predator’s information is not removed from the registry’s public website when they leave the state of Florida. In addition, sexual offenders and predators that are reported deceased remain on the website for one year after the date of death as provided on the death certificate.

Uniform Criminal Justice Data Collection. The 2018 Legislature enacted Ch. 128-127, Laws of Florida, with the intent of creating a model of uniform data collection by requiring local and state criminal justice agencies to report complete, accurate, and timely data, and making such data available to the public to promote criminal justice data transparency. Specifically, the law requires the clerks of court, state attorneys, public defenders, county detention facility administrators, and the Department of Corrections to collect specified data on a biweekly basis and report it to the FDLE on a monthly basis. FDLE is required to publish the data collected on their website and make it searchable and accessible to the public by January 1, 2020.

The 2019 Legislature enacted Ch. 2019-167, Laws of Florida, which amended this law to define new data elements and revise existing ones, and require certain state agencies or local entities to collect and report these elements in an effort to help ensure accurate and comprehensive collection. The law also required the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Information Systems Council to develop specifications for a uniform arrest affidavit, uniform charge and disposition statue crosswalk table, and a uniform criminal disposition and sentencing statute crosswalk table. Through the Criminal Justice Transparency (CJDT) initiative, the department dataset currently contains information related to arrests connected to physical bookings, prosecution actions, and court dispositions covering all 67 counties in Florida.

The 2021 General Appropriations Act (Chapter 2021-36, Laws of Florida) requires the department to provide monthly status reports to the Executive Office of the Governor’s Office of Policy and Budget, the Department of Management Services, and the chairs of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee in order to receive funding to implement these criminal justice data collection and reporting requirements.  Each status report must include progress made to date for each project milestone, deliverable, and task order, planned and actual deliverable completion dates, planned and actual costs incurred, and any project issues and risks. Further, the department is required to competitively procure a private sector provider with experience in conducting independent verification and validation services of public sector information technology projects to provide independent verification and validation services for all department staff and vendor work needed to implement the initiative.

Automatic Sealing of Criminal History Records. The 2019 Legislature also enacted Ch. 2019-167, Laws of Florida, which, among other provisions, reorganized sealing and expunction statutes for clarity and created an automatic sealing process for certain criminal history records. This process requires FDLE to automatically seal a criminal history record when charges were not filed or dismissed (unless the dismissal was due to incompetency to proceed) or the defendant was acquitted, by either a verdict of not guilty or an acquittal. This process does not apply to forcible felonies such as murder and sexual battery. The sealing is not contingent on a person's prior criminal history and there is no limit to the number of sealings a person can receive.

Juvenile Criminal History Records. Section 943.053, Florida Statutes, provides that criminal history information related to juveniles compiled is confidential and exempt from public record requirements, except when the juvenile has been taken into custody for, charged with, or found guilty of, a felony offense, or the juvenile has been transferred to adult court. The exempt juvenile criminal history information must be made available in certain instances. However, these provisions were subject to repeal and to prevent the release of this information, the 2021 Legislature enacted Chapter 2021-118, Laws of Florida, which removes scheduled repeals of exemption from public record requirements for juvenile criminal history information.  

Other Reports
The Auditor General reports on department operations are available on its website.

Websites of Interest
FBI National Crime Information Center
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website

Performance

Ron Draa, Chief of Staff, 850-410-7020  

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