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New software improves public access to North Carolina criminal records
Until last week, people who wanted to conduct a criminal record background check at the public computer terminals at the Cumberland County Courthouse had to know the arcane keystrokes and commands of a 34-year-old computer program.
Many patrons unfamiliar with the system gave up after a few moments of fruitless key presses and mouse-clicks.
But on Jan. 27, the state installed modern software on the public terminals. A 21st century graphical user interface with plain-English instructions replaced an old-school computer display of green letters on a black background.
The new software allows the public to find information more quickly and more easily, said Cumberland County Clerk of Court Kim Tucker.
She expects the new system to save money for courthouse patrons: The new system allows patrons to get a copy of their results for free by email instead of making them pay 25 cents per page for a printed copy. Those who don't know how to work the computer no longer have to pay the courthouse clerks $25 to conduct the background check for them.
"Any time you can email something to somebody, you're saving a huge amount of staff time and also paper, copying costs," Tucker said.
The new software is called CIPRS, which is pronounced "cypress" and stands for Criminal and Infractions Records Search. It supplements, but does not replace, the old system, which is called ACIS and became operational in 1982. ACIS rhymes with "basis" and stands for Automated Criminal/Infractions System.
CIPRS is an improvement not only because it is easier to use, but because it lets patrons do a statewide background check. ACIS results are confined to one county: the one the patron is in when conducting the background check.
That said, CIPRS lacks some features of ACIS. For example, while CIPRS shows whether someone was convicted of a crime, it does not display the prison sentence or other punishment the judge imposed. ACIS shows the punishment and other details that CIPRS leaves out.
Fayetteville lawyer Tyran Jamail George has used ACIS for 10 years and is skilled with its Byzantine commands. He tried CIPRS for the first time last week.
George liked the ease-of-use - "it was definitely user-friendly," he said - but he was frustrated because the results did not show him all the information that he needed about his clients.
According to a CIPRS instruction sheet from the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts, ACIS remains installed in another window of the public terminals for users such as George. They can switch to that window to use ACIS to see the more in-depth results.
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