The primary function of the Vermont Crime Information Center (VCIC) is to serve as the state repository for a wide variety of criminal history data. This includes an individual's contact with the Vermont Criminal Justice System from beginning to end. Data pertaining to the individuals arrest, fingerprints, mugshots, arraignment information, and case disposition information are all included in the VCIC databases.
VCIC's mission is to provide Accurate, Complete and Timely criminal history record information to Vermont law enforcement agencies and any other agency that has an authorized right to the information in pursuit of public safety.
VCIC takes great pride in the accuracy of the information it oversees and generally experiences an accuracy rate of less than a one percent error rate (< 1%). Quality control of incoming information is extremely important to ensure high quality data.
While maintaining accurate, complete and timely records is an important part of VCIC's mission it is equally important to ensure that the information is made available to individuals and agencies for use in the public interest in accordance with current legislation. This concept has long been VCIC's fundamental vision.
Pursuant to the VCIC vision of data access VCIC has, in recent years, garnered support from the Vermont Legislature to allow more open access to records. From these initiatives programs such as the Vermont Criminal Conviction Record Internet Service (VCCRIS) and Crime Data Explorer (CDE) evolved.
VCCRIS is an online service which allows an individual to obtain a criminal conviction report on anyone, for any reason, by providing a name and date of birth for the subject of the inquiry.
CDE is an online crime data system developed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that allows an individual to query a database for crime statistics and related analytical information. Through this system data is available for both the state and national level.
In its attempt to ensure critical agencies were provided up to date information VCIC developed a subscription service which provides certain enabled agencies to be notified when an individual, for whom they have taken out a subscription, incurs a record change.
These are just a few of the ways that VCIC strives to serve the public interest by developing tools and resources that allow access to the accurate and complete data in the repository in a timely fashion by the public and agencies that can utilize the information.