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Audit Objectives
The objectives of our audit were to evaluate whether: (1) the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) program has been fully deployed with the capability to compare ballistic images on a national level; (2) controls are adequate to ensure that all bullets and/or cartridge casings collected at crime scenes and from test-fires of crime firearms are entered into NIBIN; and (3) controls are adequate to ensure that ballistic images of bullets and cartridge casings from newly manufactured, imported, or sold firearms are not available in, or connected in any way to NIBIN. We performed our audit in accordance with the Government Auditing Standards and, accordingly, included such tests of the procedures and practices, as we deemed necessary.
Scope and Methodology
As part of the audit, we reviewed applicable federal laws and regulations, policies, procedures and management reports from the NIBIN Program Management Office. We also interviewed officials from the NIBIN Program Management Office; visited law enforcement agencies that were provided IBIS equipment by the ATF and are considered NIBIN partner agencies; and sent survey questionnaires to Department of Justice law enforcement agencies, NIBIN partner agencies, NIBIN participating non-partner agencies, and NIBIN non-participating non-partner agencies. We also interviewed contractor personnel working on the NIBIN program in connection with contracts established by the NIBIN Program Management Office. We performed on-site audit work at the following 30 locations.
| Agency Visited |
Location |
| ATF Laboratory |
Ammendale, MD |
| ATF Laboratory |
Atlanta, GA |
| FBI Laboratory |
Quantico, VA |
| Allegheny County Coroner’s Office |
Pittsburgh, PA |
| Boston Police Department |
Boston, MA |
| Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department |
Charlotte, NC |
| Denver Police Department |
Denver, CO |
| Detroit Police Department |
Detroit, MI |
| Erie County Forensic Laboratory |
Buffalo, NY |
| Gastonia Police Department |
Gastonia, NC |
| Georgia Bureau of Investigation |
Decatur, GA |
| Hickory Police Department |
Hickory, NC |
| Houston Police Department |
Houston, TX |
| Indianapolis-Marion County Forensic Laboratory |
Indianapolis, IN |
| Los Angeles Police Department |
Los Angeles, CA |
| Maryland State Police |
Pikesville, MD |
| Minneapolis Police Department |
Minneapolis, MN |
| Mint Hill Police Department |
Charlotte, NC |
| Mississippi State Crime Laboratory |
Jackson, MS |
| New Mexico State Police |
Santa Fe, NM |
| New Orleans Police Department |
New Orleans, LA |
| New York State Police Forensic Investigation Center |
Albany, NY |
| Omaha Police Department Crime Laboratory |
Omaha, NE |
| Prince George’s County Police Department |
Landover, MD |
| Rhode Island State Crime Laboratory |
Kingston, RI |
| Rowan County Sheriff’s Department |
Salisbury, NC |
| Salisbury Police Department |
Salisbury, NC |
| Statesville Police Department |
Statesville, NC |
| Tulsa Police Department |
Tulsa, OK |
| Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory |
Tacoma, WA |
To determine whether the IBIS equipment has been fully deployed, we:
- interviewed ATF officials concerning the methodology and process used to determine how the IBIS equipment would be deployed;
- obtained and reviewed documentation such as memoranda, schedules, and procedures related to the ATF’s deployment plan for NIBIN;
- obtained and analyzed a list showing the agencies that received the IBIS equipment and when the equipment was installed;
- compared the actual deployment of the IBIS equipment to the planned deployment schedule; and
- obtained and analyzed firearms data entered into NIBIN for both partner agencies and non-partner agencies.
To determine if NIBIN has been deployed with the capability to compare ballistic images on a national level, we:
- interviewed ATF officials and made observations of the system’s capability to perform nationwide comparisons;
- visited 22 of the 196 NIBIN partner agencies that had received RDAS equipment as of October 22, 2004 ; and
- sent survey questionnaires to the remaining 174 partner agencies to understand how the nationwide comparison is used.
To evaluate whether controls are adequate to ensure that all bullets and/or cartridge casings collected at crime scenes and from test-fires of crime firearms are entered into NIBIN, we:
- obtained a copy of the NIBIN database as of October 22, 2004, and determined it contained 888,447 records of firearms evidence, 514,731 records of cases, and 254,187 records of firearms for 196 NIBIN partner agencies;
- analyzed the database to identify errors and omissions in the database records;
- analyzed the NIBIN data to determine how many of the 38,717 law enforcement agencies with ORI numbers had contributed data to NIBIN;
- analyzed the NIBIN data entered by the partner agencies to determine its distribution;
- analyzed the NIBIN data entered into the system to compare it to the firearms crime data contained in the FBI’s UCR, and to determine whether the amount of data entered into NIBIN is comparable to the number of firearms crimes reported each year;
- analyzed the distribution of hits in NIBIN compared to the cases and evidence entered into NIBIN;
- interviewed ATF officials to determine what efforts they made to promote the NIBIN program to law enforcement agencies;
- asked both participating and non-participating law enforcement agencies about the ATF’s promotion of the NIBIN program. Specifically, we asked 16 NIBIN partner agencies we visited about the ATF’s promotion efforts. We also sent survey questionnaires to: (1) 174 partner agencies and 411 participating non-partner agencies that contributed evidence to NIBIN, and (2) 85 non-participating non-partner agencies;
- asked the partner agencies about their efforts to promote the NIBIN program among law enforcement agencies in their area. Specifically, we asked 16 partner agencies we visited about their efforts to promote the program and we sent survey questionnaires to 174 partner agencies that contributed data to NIBIN;
- evaluated whether partner agencies and participating non-partner agencies were entering the maximum amount of evidence into the system by: (1) analyzing the evidence data entered into NIBIN for each partner agency, (2) visiting 22 partner agencies and discussing with agency officials the type of evidence entered into the system, (3) sending survey questionnaires to the remaining 174 partners that contributed evidence to NIBIN and to a sample of 411 participating non-partner agencies asking similar questions, and (4) contacting the agencies by telephone that received RBI units to discuss their use of these units when entering cartridge casings into NIBIN;
- evaluated the correlation process during our visits to partner agencies to determine whether they were reviewing the correlations to identify hits in a timely manner. We also obtained a report from the ATF showing all correlations not viewed by the partner agencies. During our visits to the partner agencies, we verified the accuracy of the non-viewed correlations shown on the report and asked the agencies to explain the basis for the non-viewed correlations;
- evaluated whether participating agencies were entering firearms evidence into NIBIN in a timely manner. We visited 22 NIBIN partner agencies and sent survey questionnaires to the remaining 174 partner agencies that had contributed evidence to NIBIN and to 411 participating non-partner agencies. We asked the agencies if they had firearms evidence awaiting entry, how much evidence was awaiting entry, and the reasons for the backlog; and
- sent survey questionnaires to the Department of Justice law enforcement agencies to determine if they were complying with a January 2001 mandate from the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury to enter crime-related firearms evidence into NIBIN.
To evaluate whether controls are adequate to ensure that ballistic images of bullets and cartridge casings from newly manufactured, imported, or sold firearms are not available in, or connected in any way to NIBIN, we:
- interviewed ATF officials to determine whether the ATF had established any controls within NIBIN to prevent users from entering ballistic images from newly manufactured, imported, or sold firearms;
- observed the entry of firearms data into NIBIN at 22 agencies that received the IBIS equipment;
- sent survey questionnaires to: (1) the remaining 174 NIBIN partner agencies that had contributed data to NIBIN; and (2) 411 participating non-partner agencies, and asked all of them if they had contributed data to NIBIN on newly manufactured, sold, or imported firearms;
- obtained and reviewed a copy of the MOU that is signed by the ATF and each NIBIN user prohibiting users from entering ballistic images from newly manufactured, imported, or sold firearms into NIBIN;
- interviewed Maryland State Police (MSP) officials to obtain an understanding of the MD-IBIS system that is used to enter ballistic images from new firearms;
- evaluated the MSP’s controls to ensure the new firearms data entered into the MD-IBIS system was not also entered into NIBIN operated by the MSP;
- obtained a copy of the MSP’s MD-IBIS system data containing 47,798 firearms records and compared the MD-IBIS data to the 254,187 firearms records contained in the NIBIN database to determine whether any firearms data entered into the MD-IBIS system was also entered into NIBIN;
- obtained documentation from the MSP; Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department; Colorado Division of Investigation – Pueblo; and the Los Angeles Police Department to confirm that the matching firearms data identified in our comparison of the MD-IBIS data and NIBIN data was entered into NIBIN as a result of crimes;
- interviewed New York State Police (NYSP) officials to obtain an understanding of the COBIS system that is used to enter ballistic images from new firearms;
- evaluated the NYSP’s controls to ensure the new firearms data entered into the COBIS system was not also entered into NIBIN by the NYSP;
- obtained a copy, for review on-site, of the NYSP’s COBIS system data containing 90,063 firearms records and compared the COBIS data to the 254,187 firearms records contained in the NIBIN database to determine whether any firearms data entered into the COBIS system was also entered into NIBIN; and
- obtained documentation from the NYSP; Erie County, New York, Forensic Laboratory; Monroe County, New York, Public Safety Laboratory; Westchester County, New York, Police Department; Massachusetts State Police; and the Alabama Division of Forensic Sciences laboratory to confirm that the matching firearms data identified in our comparison of the COBIS data and NIBIN data was entered into NIBIN as a result of crimes.
Data Analysis
To accomplish the audit objectives, we obtained and analyzed automated data from the ATF regarding: (1) the records in the NIBIN database as of October 22, 2004, and (2) the non-viewed correlation requests in NIBIN as of September 2004.
NIBIN Database Records: The NIBIN data is contained in multiple tables in a relational database. The ATF provided to us the NIBIN database evidence table containing records of discharged bullets and cartridge casings in the system, the cases table containing associated cases information, and the firearms table containing records of firearms in NIBIN. The evidence table contained 888,447 records of firearms evidence with each record containing 11 fields of information. The cases table contained 514,731 cases records with each record containing 8 fields of information. The firearms table contained 254,187 records of firearms with each record containing 15 fields of information.
The law enforcement agency that entered the evidence or submitted the evidence for entry, is identified in the database cases table by its ORI number. To determine the agencies (based on ORI number) that submitted evidence into NIBIN, we linked the NIBIN cases table to the NIBIN evidence table. We were unable to link the ORI numbers in the cases table to evidence in the evidence table for 55,193 of the 514,731 cases in the cases table because of the following omissions or errors in the cases table.
- 52,392 records in the cases table had “unknown” entered in the ORI field.
- 2,801 records in the cases table for two NIBIN partner agencies (Colorado Bureau of Investigation – Montrose and Rhode Island State Crime Laboratory) contained duplicate case ID numbers that made it impossible to link the cases table to the evidence table for these two agencies.
As a result of these omissions and errors, we were unable to link the ORI numbers from the 55,193 cases in the cases table to 115,092 evidence items in the evidence table. Consequently, we were only able to link the remaining 459,538 cases in the cases table to 773,355 records of evidence in the evidence table from 194 NIBIN partner agencies. Thus, our analyses of the NIBIN data in this report are limited to the 773,355 records of evidence contributed by 194 NIBIN partner agencies.
Non-Viewed Correlations Data: During the audit, we found that one high-volume partner agency (Georgia Bureau of Investigation – Decatur) did not view the correlations identified by NIBIN. We asked the ATF for a report showing the non-viewed correlations for each NIBIN partner agency to determine whether other partner agencies also were not reviewing the correlations. The ATF queried NIBIN and produced a report (NIBIN Non-Viewed Correlation Requests Report) showing the non-viewed correlation request as of September 30, 2004 . The report identified 100 partner agencies that had a total of 4,024 bullet evidence correlations that were recorded in NIBIN as non-viewed and 155 partner agencies that had a total of 18,379 cartridge case evidence correlations that were recorded in NIBIN as non-viewed. During our site visits to 1 5 of the 100 NIBIN partner agencies, we verified the accuracy of the non-viewed correlations shown on the NIBIN Non-Viewed Correlation Requests Report. Since our visits to 15 percent of the partner agencies identified on the report disclosed no discrepancies in the reported numbers, we relied on the report for our audit work.
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