Volume 3, Issue 4	NDPIX  NEWS	October 1 , 2002

Trend in NDPIX Activity

Note: The peak in the first quarter of 2002 reflects the start-up transactions from several new participants.

As of August 31, 2002, 36 states were capable of providing their law enforcement agencies with access to NDPIX. This count includes the five states of the Western States Information Network (WSIN) and the eight states of the Rocky Mountain Information Network (RMIN). The graph shown above depicts a steady increase in the daily average of targets submitted to the NDPIX. Coincident with this increase is the increase in the frequency of record matches. During August 2001, approximately 15% of targets entered into the NDPIX found one or more matches in the database. During August 2002, approximately 22% of targets entered found one or more matches in the database.

States Prepared for NDPIX Participation

NDPIX Modifications

Several suggestions made by NDPIX participants have resulted in improvements to NDPIX formats.

New Hit Notifications
NDPIX matches incoming transactions to its database, and, for each positive match, sends a Hit Notification both to the entry maker and to the owner of the original record. The old format of the Hit Notification identified for the entry maker the name, phone number, and organization of the investigator/officer who owns the original record and who should be contacted. The old format also identified for the owner of the original record the name, phone number, and organization of the investigator/officer who should be contacted. However, in most cases, the entry maker is not the investigator/officer who owns the original record and thus distribution of the NDPIX notifications was difficult for the entry maker. The new format now will provide the name of the owner of the original record and the investigator/officer to be contacted to the original data owner. This change will ensure that the owner of the original record receives the Hit Notification. The message description for the new Hit Notification is as follows:

70-ARMED AND DANGEROUS
32-UPDATE ACCEPTED-MATCHED RECORD
(1 OF 4) THIS HIT IS FOR WILSON, FRED

New Purge Notifications

NDPIX purges targets after they have been in the database for over 180 days. NDPIX notifies record owners of impending purges 30 and then 15 days prior to purging and then upon the actual purging of a record. The new format alerts the recipient as to the importance of the notification and contains the following additional information.

Other Developments

HIDTA

The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program was authorized by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 and is administered by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The HIDTA mission is to reduce drug trafficking in the most critical areas of the country thereby reducing its impact in other areas. This is to be accomplished by institutionalizing teamwork among local, state and Federal efforts and, importantly, the linking of law enforcement information sharing systems.

In September 2002, three Florida HIDTAs began entering targets into DRUGNET of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). FDLE, an NDPIX participant, automatically forwarded these records, as FDLE targets, to NDPIX. This was an important step in linking local, state and Federal information systems.

International Interest

A Republic of Korea delegation comprised of representatives from the Ministry of Justice, National Police Agency, and Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office visited the Headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for a briefing on the concept and operation of the National Drug Pointer Index (NDPIX). Korea does not have a program that provides information sharing among its law enforcement agencies. The purpose of their visit was threefold: (1) To explore whether NDPIX could serve as a model for information sharing in Korea; (2) To obtain an understanding of the program's technology; and (3) to garner an appreciation of information sharing among various law enforcement agencies in the United States. The Korean delegation thanked the NDPIX staff for the very informative briefing and stated that they would present their findings to their Minister of Justice.

The Michigan State Police

The Michigan State Police (MSP) has simplified the handling of NDPIX Purge Notifications. MSP purges its own files of investigative records based on a set of criteria independent of the 180 day deadline employed by the NDPIX. The MSP system compares incoming NDPIX Purge Notifications to its own files of active investigative records and generates Renewal transactions only for its active records. Inactive records are purged from NDPIX without any MSP manual intervention.

NDPIX Staff
Intelligence Division
Drug Enforcement Administration
700 Army Navy Drive Attn: NPPX
Washington, D. C. 20537
(202) 307-8430 or 1 800 276-5558
Unit Chief : Special Agent H. Blue Richards
(202) 307-4215

NDPIX News: Mina Hunter
Mitch Morris (202) 307-7578