Law enforcement has a new tool to help them protect the people of North Carolina – technology that allows them to search anywhere, on any device, for criminal records.
The records are provided through the Criminal Justice Law Enforcement Automated Data Services, or CJLEADS. Law enforcement officers and the courts use the system to check for criminal histories, outstanding warrants, stolen vehicles, gun records and other information that may be useful during traffic stops, arrests or court proceedings.
The upgrade, dubbed CJLEADS 2.0, is hosted on a new platform that allows users to easily access the system on any mobile device. The new platform allows for better navigation of the system and now future updates can be made more easily and quickly.
“Improved technology has allowed us to make CJLEADS a better resource for law enforcement,” said Eric Boyette, Secretary and State Chief Information Officer for the Department of Information Technology. “We hope that this improved support will make their work and our communities safer.”
The system also has improved security by now requiring multifactor authentication, meaning authorized users must navigate through more than one security barrier to access the data, reducing the chance that unauthorized users could get into the system.
The upgraded CJLEADS has added information about domestic violence protective orders to its database to help officers gain quicker access to that information.
“The updated release of CJLEADS 2.0 by our partners at the North Carolina Department of Information Technology is an added tool in the tool belt aimed at keeping our members safe,” said Colonel Glenn M. McNeill Jr., Commander of the State Highway Patrol. “For our troopers to approach a given situation with as much known information as possible gives us hope that all involved parties would remain safe in what are often dynamic circumstances.”
The state is also running a pilot program with about 100 users that integrates North Carolina criminal data with federal data. Currently, that information is available through a different system maintained by another state agency and requires a separate account and login.
Integrating the systems will allow patrol officers to access the federal data more quickly to determine if someone is in a stolen vehicle, wanted on a warrant from another state or has a criminal history outside of North Carolina.
CJLEADS is managed by the Government Data Analytics Center (GDAC) within the Department of Information Technology in partnership with its user agencies. The system has about 25,000 users, including police officers, sheriff’s deputies, parole officers, State Bureau of Investigations agents, and State Highway Patrol Troopers.
CJLEADS has been in operation since 2009. This is the first time since then that the program has had a major upgrade. GDAC estimates that CJEADS saves the state millions of dollars a year by reducing search times, eliminating manual data integration, and reducing the risk of missing critical offender data.
To hear from NC Highway Patrol State Trooper Jack Thorpe on how CJLEADS impacts his job, visit our YouTube page.