The Strategic Use of Crime Gun Information
This section
describes the progress made in comprehensive crime gun tracing during
the past year. Crime gun tracing is voluntary for most law enforcement
agencies. Through the Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative (YCGII)
and other firearms enforcement programs, ATF in 1996 began a concerted
effort to work with other law enforcement organizations to maximize
the utility of this critical investigative tool. To develop and encourage
crime gun tracing, ATF continues to strive to improve the tracing process,
the quantity, quality, and delivery of crime gun information, and related
investigative services to ATF agents and their State and local partners.
5-1
Level and Quality of Crime Gun Tracing
Number
of Crime Guns Traced. The number of firearm traces submitted
to the National Tracing Center (NTC) increased from 197,537 traces in
1998 to 206,070 traces in 1999, a 4 percent increase. Law enforcement
officials in the 38 participating YCGII cities submitted approximately
66,787 crime gun trace requests between January 1, 1999 and December
31, 1999, 32 percent of the total number of crime gun trace requests
submitted to the NTC during this period. The 12 new YCGII cities submitted
11,885 trace requests.
Comprehensive
Crime Gun Tracing. Police departments that join the YCGII
make a commitment to trace all crime guns recovered in their jurisdictions
in order to maximize investigative leads and permit analysis of local
crime gun patterns by age group. While other law enforcement agencies
are making similar commitments and meeting them successfully, the annual
Crime Gun Trace Reports currently include only YCGII cities. ATF makes
a special effort to ensure the accuracy of the information collected
for these reports. While the NTC cannot determine definitively whether
all recovered crime guns are being traced, an evaluation can be made
based on the number of trace requests, the tracing infrastructure in
the law enforcement agencies, and on information obtained from local
officials. On this basis, the NTC determined that during 1999, 24 of
the 38 cities participating in YCGII were tracing comprehensively. These
cities were Baltimore, MD; Boston, MA: Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC; Chicago,
IL; Cincinnati, OH; Cleveland, OH; Dallas, TX; Gary, IN; Jersey City,
NJ; Memphis, TN; Miami, FL; Milwaukee, WI; Minneapolis, MN; New Orleans,
LA; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Portland, OR; Richmond, VA; San
Antonio, TX; San Jose, CA; St. Louis, MO; Tampa, FL; Tucson, AZ; and
Washington, DC. Of the remaining 14 cities, 12 cities provided a sufficiently
substantial number of traces for a city-based analysis, and two cities
submitted insufficient trace requests to complete a City Report but
were included in the National Report. In each City Report, Table H reports
each citys number of trace submissions.
State
Comprehensive Crime Gun Tracing Laws.
Four States recently have enacted firearms tracing laws: California
(California Penal Code section 11108.3 (1998)), Connecticut (Connecticut
General Statute. sec. 54-36n (1998)), North Carolina (114-10. Division
of Criminal Statistics, Session Laws 1999-225, s. 1(1999)) and Illinois
(720 ICLS 5/24-8 (1998)) (juvenile crime guns only). Maryland is instituting
Statewide comprehensive tracing by Executive Order 01.01.1998.20. Comprehensive
tracing has been achieved in New Jersey through the initiative of law
enforcement authorities. ATF is working with appropriate authorities
in these states to assist in implementing their tracing laws.
Number
of Completed Traces.
The NTC is continually improving its ability to diagnose the reasons
for missing crime gun trace information to learn what type of crime
gun information is most consistently missing or inaccurately reported,
and to determine whether the failure to match serial numbers is due
to obliteration, faulty recording, incorrect Federal Firearms Licensee
(FFL) records, or data mismanagement. This effort is shown in Tables
I and J of the City Reports, and summarized nationally here.
Increased
FFL identification rate. For trace requests where the NTC
initiated a trace, the NTC identified Federal firearms licensees for
75 percent (44,369) of crime guns. This represents an improvement over
the 66 percent rate reported in 1998s Crime Gun Trace Reports.
Obstacles
to identifying purchasers. As in 1998, the NTC identified
retail purchasers for over half (52 percent, 35,006) of the crime guns.
Where a trace was initiated by the NTC, purchasers were not identified
for several reasons, including:
problem with crime gun serial number (13 percent)
records on this crime gun unavailable (7 percent)
problem with importer name (7 percent)
problem with manufacturer name (4 percent)
records not available (1 percent)
expiration of 20-year record retention requirement (1 percent).
Uninitiated
traces.
The NTC did not initiate a trace for about a tenth (11 percent, 7,513)
of the trace requests, for several reasons, including:
firearms manufactured before 1969 and not traceable through Out-of-Business
records (9 percent)
trace request submitted for informational purposes only (2 percent)
other reasons (0.5 percent)
The initiation
of 90 percent of the trace requests from YCGII jurisdictions is an improvement
over prior years and this improvement as attributable, in part, to a
policy instituted by the NTC in 1999 of initiating traces on all crime
gun trace requests, including older firearms that were previously untraced.
Other
limitations. With sufficient information about the crime
gun, the NTC can identify the first retail purchaser of crime guns.
In most cases, it cannot identify retail purchasers of crime guns resold
by FFLs as used guns, or of crime guns acquired as used guns from unlicensed
sellers. As a result of the structure of the firearms laws, an NTC trace
usually stops at the first retail purchase of the firearm recovered
by law enforcement.
5-2
Investigative Support for State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies
Trace
Analysis, Mapping, and Investigative Support. The NTC Crime
Gun Analysis Branch (CGAB) has been increasingly active in responding
to requests from law enforcement agencies for assistance in developing
strategic overviews of the local crime gun problem and in law enforcement
investigations and regulatory inspections. In 1999, the CGAB completed
over 30 crime gun mapping requests, including 10 YCGII cities; 130 requests
for crime gun trace information; 650 requests for queries of the Firearms
Tracing System (FTS) concerning individuals; 600 requests for queries
concerning FFLs; 230 proactive referrals to investigators on suspected
firearms traffickers; 20 presentations in 1999 on crime gun trace analysis
through crime gun mapping and Online LEAD to YCGII cities, and prepared
the Crime Gun Trace Reports.
Field
Resource: Online LEAD. Online LEAD is the current version
of Project LEAD, ATFs crime gun trafficking information system.
In 1999, the number of ATF investigators using Online LEAD increased
from less than 100 to approximately 1,400 users. In November 1999, Online
LEAD was deployed to all ATF field offices to enable ATF agents, inspectors,
and local task force officers to access crime gun trace and related
multiple sales information directly from their desktop computers using
the ATF Intraweb, with over 200 users from YCGII cities receiving access.
ATF investigators in all locations can now access not only local but
all nationwide crime gun information, facilitating regional and interstate
investigations. Also in 1999, the NTC added a number of enhancements
to make the system more user friendly, including additional information
fields and queries aimed at the local investigator.
New
Features in the Crime Gun Trace Reports. This years
reports are provided on a calendar year basis for the first time. ATF
is presenting a National Report for the first time, based on traces
from a significant number of cities with a population of 250,000 or
more. Other significant improvements include the addition of: analysis
of models of crime guns for nine cities that provided adequate information
(National Report); new information relevant to officer safety (National
and City Reports) and on crime guns purchased in multiple sales (National
Report); maps showing crime gun sources (National and City Reports);
reporting on instances where the purchaser is the crime gun possessor
(City Reports, Table A); median time-to-crime (City Reports, Table E);
county level geographic source information (City Reports, Table G);
trace completion rates for possessor age, recovery location, manufacturer,
and importer (City Reports, Table H); and additional analysis of reasons
for lack of trace completion (City Reports, Table J).
Training:
Firearms Tracing and Illegal Trafficking Investigations.
In 1999, ATF developed a training CD-ROM to help train Federal, State,
and local law enforcement officers participating in YCGII in firearms
identification and tracing procedures. ATF field agents learned how
to use the YCGII Instructor CD-ROM and then delivered it locally. Because
of the important role of firearms trafficking investigations in the
reduction of violent crime, the International Association of Chiefs
of Police, in a program funded by the Department of Justices Bureau
of Justice Assistance, in 1999 continued to provide training at the
NTC for police departments interested in starting comprehensive crime
gun tracing and trafficking enforcement programs.
Training:
Restoration of Obliterated Serial Numbers. ATF continues
to work with police departments and law enforcement laboratories to
restore obliterated serial numbers on crime guns and to develop local
coordinated enforcement efforts to trace and proactively target leads
derived from recovered crime guns with obliterated serial numbers. ATF
has developed a 3-day session of instructional and hands-on training
for State and local investigators and firearm examiners covering the
importance of restoring obliterated serial numbers and tracing those
firearms. Thirteen schools were held in fiscal year 2000, five in YCGII
cities.
5-3
Improvements in the Tracing Process and Tracing Support for State and
Local Law Enforcement Agencies
Currently,
a routine firearm trace takes an average of 10 and a half business days
to complete. Urgent traces are completed within 24 hours. In 1999, ATF
continued to take steps to shorten the time it takes to complete a routine
trace, and facilitate law enforcement agencies ability to submit
and receive trace information.
The
Transition to Paperless Tracing. The NTC supports the receipt
of batches of trace requests via electronic file transfer from federal,
State, and local law enforcement agencies. This firearms tracing process
was designed specifically for those agencies which are already utilizing
some type of automated system, i.e., property, incident, or ballistics
database. The process simply involves the user extracting the data the
NTC requires to initiate a firearms trace, creating a formatted data
file, and then sending that batch of data via a modem to
the NTC. This system was designed to decrease the turnaround time for
routine traces, report the trace results faster, cut down on the number
of errors, and offer a user-friendly alternative to manual trace request
submission. In 1999, the NTC made ETSS available to all ATF Field Offices
by downloading the software from the NTC page on the ATF Intraweb. Upon
request, law enforcement agencies can upload ETSS by CD-ROM. Currently
62 State and local law enforcement agencies, including agencies in 35
of the 38 YCGII cities, have ETSS access.
Access
2000: Firearms Industry Cooperation.
Access 2000 is an ATF produced system that allows a manufacturer, importer,
or wholesaler to download a subset of their firearms data into a stand-alone
personal computer. ATF tracers can then dial up and query on a specific
serial number in order to obtain a disposition on the firearm. Access
2000 also allows 24-hour access to manufacturer, importer, or wholesaler
records and is, therefore, particularly useful for urgent traces. The
system speeds the trace process from 1 to 3 days by eliminating the
step of calling or faxing the manufacturer, importer, or wholesaler
and waiting for the results of the crime guns disposition, while
also reducing firearms industry trace-related costs. In 1999, use of
Access 2000 increased from 6 to 10 manufacturers and/or wholesalers,
and now includes 9 manufacturers: Beretta U.S.A. Corp., H&R 1871
Inc., Smith & Wesson, Taurus, Heckler & Koch, Marlin, Mossberg,
Colt, and Glock G.m.b.H.; and two major wholesalers: RSR Wholesale Guns
and Davidsons Supply Company.
Multiple
Sales Records and Crime Gun Tracing. The NTC continues to
use multiple sales records to speed crime gun tracing. FFLs are required
by law to report multiple sales transactions of handguns and to forward
those records to the NTC. To facilitate crime gun tracing, the NTC began
maintaining multiple sales information in a Multiple Sales Database
linked to the FTS. When a crime gun trace request is received, the serial
number is entered into the FTS. If the serial number entered matches
a serial number in the Multiple Sales Database, the crime gun trace
request can be closed immediately with the multiple sales purchaser
information without time-consuming telephone calls to FFLs. In 1999,
approximately 3 percent of 1999 YCGII traces were completed with purchaser
information from a multiple sales transaction. Because the Multiple
Sales Database was established in November 1998, and there may be a
delay of several years before a crime gun is traced, the NTC anticipates
resolving more traces through the multiple sales database in the future.
Out-of-Business
Records Imaging and Crime Gun Tracing. The NTC is also using
FFL Out-of- Business records to speed crime gun tracing. When an FFL
discontinues business, the FFL is required by law to forward business
records within 30 days to the Out-of-Business Records Center (OBRC)
located at the NTC. OBRC receives and microfilms the acquisition and
disposition records and ATF Form 4473s from all firearm transactions
completed by FFLs who have discontinued business. OBRC processed records
for 6,356 FFLs from January 1, 1999 to December 31, 1999. In this time
period, over 8 percent of all crime gun traces were completed with information
from an out-of-business dealer. To speed and increase traces completed
through out-of-business records, the NTC is shifting from a microfilm
to an imaging system that can link firearm serial numbers to the FTS.
When a crime gun serial number is entered into the FTS, the serial number
automatically will be checked against the Out-of-Business records as
well as the Multiple Sales Database and previously entered crime gun
trace information. If there is a match on the imaged serial number,
NTC personnel can immediately pull it from the microfilmed Out-of-Business
records to complete the firearm disposition to either an FFL or a final
retail purchaser. The NTC expects this improvement to speed tracing
and enable the completion of additional older crime gun traces, including
used firearms resold by out-of-business FFLs.
5-4
Future Developments
Investigative
Tracing for Juvenile Crime Guns. ATF is instituting a new
investigative policy requiring special agents in all YCGII cities to
conduct investigative traces on all crime guns recovered from juveniles
and youth up to age 21. Investigative traces are traces that go beyond
the first retail purchaser through the chain of possession until the
crime gun reaches the crime gun possessor. After its initial retail
purchase, a crime gun may be transferred repeatedly before being used
in a crime. For instance, it may be resold by an unlicensed seller,
stolen, and then resold to an FFL, and resold again. In an investigative
trace, special agents attempt to track the full chain of possession
to determine how the juvenile obtained the firearms, to build a case
against any illegal suppliers. Analysis of juvenile investigative trace
information will increase our understanding of how juveniles obtain
crime guns.
Support
for Additional Law Enforcement Agencies. ATF plans to provide
comprehensive tracing support and trace analysis reporting through YCGII
to all cities with populations of 250,000 or more and to other jurisdictions
with special firearms crime problems. Twelve new cities will be added
in 2000. ATF plans to assign additional agents to YCGII sites to follow
up on investigative leads. ATF also plans to provide tracing software
and training to 250 additional law enforcement agencies.
Electronic
Trace Returns (ETR). To reduce trace response time, the NTC
in 1999 began development of ETR to provide ATF field offices and law
enforcement agencies with electronic trace results in addition to printed
trace reports. Currently, Federal, State, and local law enforcement
can submit trace requests electronically, but can only receive individual
trace responses via a hard copy on paper. (Upon request by law enforcement
agencies, the NTC will extract all of a jurisdictions trace requests
from the Firearms Tracing System and provide them on disk.) ETR will
apply only to those sites submitting trace request data electronically.
TR is expected to be available by the end of 2000 and will reduce routine
trace response time by 2 to 3 days.
Expanded
Access 2000. To speed tracing, ATF will dedicate additional
resources to sign up more manufacturers, importers, and wholesalers
to respond to NTC trace queries electronically through Access 2000,
allowing 24-hour access to FFL records. ATF expects an additional 7
to 10 manufactures, importers and wholesalers to join the system by
October 2001.
Firearms
Identification Guide. To address the problem of unsuccessful
traces due to faulty information on the trace request form, the NTC
is developing a CD-ROM that will train the law enforcement community
in firearms identification. The CD will contain graphic illustrations,
historical data, and specifications on the 100 most frequently traced
firearms. The CD is intended to be a stand-alone training aid that can
be utilized by everyone from entry level personnel to senior investigators
to crime laboratories.
The CD
can also be used to print hard copy material for handouts and presentations.
Improved Electronic Trace Submission. ETSS Version 2.6, which will be
released in the beginning of fiscal year 2001, will afford the users
with the capability to link the database to their local server. This
will allow ETSS to be installed on numerous machines while at the same
time capturing all trace request data in one centralized database. A
users guide for Version 2.6 will be provided.
Regional
Crime Gun Centers. To ensure comprehensive crime gun tracing,
and to support coordinated investigations that follow a crime guns
history, ATF is planning to increase the number of regional crime gun
centers. Equipped with the best information hardware and software, a
crime gun center is used by ATF and State and local investigators and
analysts to develop investigative leads on armed criminals and gun traffickers
and develop local and regional trend and pattern analysis and crime
gun mapping to assist in local violence reduction strategies. The New
York Crime Gun Center, the first, has sent over 340 viable leads to
investigators in over 20 States, many of them resulting in firearms
violations investigations and arrests of firearms traffickers. Two additional
centers are underway in Chicago and Washington, DC. ATF is reviewing
this project to establish models that can be replicated based on the
demographics of particular areas, and looks to greatly expand this concept.
Used
Crime Gun Trace Information. The NTC in 2000 began requiring
certain FFLs who failed to cooperate with crime gun traces as well as
those with 10 or more crime gun traces with a time-to-crime of 3 years
or less, to report certain firearms transaction information to the NTC
to permit crime gun tracing. For those FFLs, the NTC is now able to
trace certain firearms sold used by FFLs that were recovered in crime.
This information will be incorporated into crime gun tracing reporting
in the future.
Ballistics
Identification and Crime Gun Tracing. Many State and local
law enforcement agencies have installed ballistics imaging systems as
part of the growing National Integrated Ballistics Identification Network
(NIBIN). In some cases, an image of the cartridge case or the bullet
can be linked to a serial number and permit a crime gun trace. Such
traces are not yet included systematically in the Firearms Tracing System
or the annual Crime Gun Trace Reports. As this information becomes available,
ATF will make related crime gun and ballistics information available
in an integrated and accessible investigative information system as
well as in related reports.
Chap
1 | Chap 2 | Chap
3 | Chap 4 | Chap 5
| Appendices | Index