Order for Protection
Statewide Database
Information for Advocates
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March 1999 |
Authored by Patricia Hunter, B.C.A.
New Order for Protection
Statewide Database
The Gender Fairness Taskforce of the Minnesota Supreme
Court in 1989 identified the enforcement of civil domestic abuse Orders for
Protection (OFP) as a priority. As a result, the Minnesota Supreme Court and
Department of Public Safety collaborated to create a new statewide database
of Order for Protection information available to criminal justice agencies
throughout Minnesota and, in many cases, throughout the nation. The purpose
of this database is to provide greater protection to victims of domestic
abuse through better service and enforcement of orders for Protection.
Service and enforcement are enhanced when the criminal justice community
has ready access to reliable information on the existence of Orders for
Protection and the conditions of those orders.
What Is the Order for Protection
Statewide Database?
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There are actually three separate but interconnected
computerized systems which contain information on Minnesota Domestic Abuse
Orders for Protection. The interconnectivity of these three systems enables
the automated passing of OFP information directly from the courts to law
enforcement and other criminal justice agencies. Below is a description of
each of these systems.
Court OFP System
Courts throughout Minnesota are now entering information on new Orders for
Protection in a centralized database. Once entered into the Court OFP
System, information on served temporary orders and all permanent orders is
available to court staff anywhere in Minnesota. This transformation from
manual to automated processing of OFP records was accomplished on a county
by county basis. All counties were automated and capable of entering orders
on December 31, 1998.
Only Minnesota court personnel have access to the Court
OFP system. However, selected information from the Court OFP System is
automatically passed, on a daily basis, to another automated system called
the CJIS Hot Files which is available to criminal justice agencies
throughout Minnesota.
CJIS OFP Hot Files
The Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) Hot
Files are automated records of Minnesota law enforcement investigative
cases. CJIS Hot Files include records on wanted persons and stolen
property. These highly confidential and sensitive files can only be
accessed by criminal justice facilities including law enforcement dispatch
centers, jails, and squad cars equipped with mobile digital terminals
(MDTs) or mobile computer terminals (MCTs).
Twice daily, OFP information entered into the Court OFP
System by court personnel is automatically passed to the CJIS Hot Flies to
create OFP Hot File records. Because of the small size of squad car screens
and other limiting factors, the CJIS OFP Hot Files contain only a subset of
the information entered into the Court OFP System. Therefore, law
enforcement agencies will continue to retain a paper copy of the full Order
as issued by the court. In most counties, the sheriff's department will be
designated as "controlling agency" of the Order for Protection record. The
controlling agency is responsible for responding to questions from other
criminal justice agencies on outstanding orders for protection issued within
that county. The controlling agency must also maintain the paper copy in an
area that is readily accessible to appropriate agency personnel, such as
the dispatch center, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.
Once an Order is served, the CJIS Hot File system
automatically passes the OFP record to another electronic data base called
NCIC Hot Files.
NCIC OFP Hot Files
The National Crime Information Center (NCIC) system is
an automated database operated by the FBI that houses law enforcement
investigative records on wanted and missing persons and stolen property.
NCIC Hot File records are available to criminal justice agencies nationwide.
Once an Order for Protection is passed to NCIC, criminal justice agencies
throughout the country have access to information about that Order, greatly
increasing the ability of law enforcement agencies nationwide to properly
respond to allegations of violations. Only served orders are passed to NCIC.
States sending OFP information to the NCIC Hot Files as of April 1999 are:
Alaska
Arizona
Georgia
Indiana
Iowa |
Kansas
Kentucky
Maryland
Minnesota
Montana |
New York
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania |
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Wyoming |
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How will this OFP Database help
victims of domestic abuse?
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Victims who have obtained Orders for Protection have a
right to expect those orders to he enforced, regardless of when or where a
violation occurs. With improved access to essential OFP information, law
enforcement is better able to meet those expectations. Law enforcement
officers throughout Minnesota and the nation can now access information
about an existing order through their agencies' Criminal Justice Data
Network computers and can then obtain further confirmation of the full
information contained in the order by contacting the controlling law
enforcement agency. With this information, officers will be better able to
respond to allegations of violations, more likely to arrest suspected
offenders, and better equipped to make decisions about issuance of gun
permits.
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What Information is available in the
OFP Hot File Record?
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- Respondent information including name, birth date, physical description.
- Physical descriptions may include any or all of the following:
sex, race, eye color, hair color, height and weight. The more
descriptive information available, the greater the likelihood that
law enforcement will be able to correctly identify the subject and
act on the information.
- Protected parties information including name, birth date, sex, and race.
- Protected addresses (up to two addresses) named in the Order. The
protected parties have the right to keep address information from
appearing on the Hot File record if they wish to keep this information
strictly confidential.
- The conditions of the Order which are of greatest importance for
enforcement purposes. Space limitations may preclude the passing of some
condition-related information to the Hot File record. "Minor" conditions
and/or specific exclusions to the conditions will appear only on the
paper copy.
- A federal firearm gun prohibition caveat, if the court determines that
such a prohibition should apply.
- The date the order was issued and the date the order is due to expire.
- The status of the order, whether "Served" or "Not Served". Law
enforcement can only make arrests on orders that have been served.
Below are the two-letter condition codes that can appear on the CJIS Hot
File records along with an explanation of each code:
| NH |
No physical harm to petitioner/children. |
| NC |
No contact with petitioner/children. |
| NK |
No contact with children. |
| NP |
No contact with petitioner. |
| NX |
No contact with protected parties, but exceptions exist - see full order. |
| XR |
Respondent must not enter petitioner's residence. |
| XA |
Respondent is excluded from a reasonable area surrounding petitioner's
residence. |
| XW |
Respondent is excluded from petitioner's place of employment. |
| LW |
Respondent's access to petitioner's place of employment is limited as follows. |
| CC |
Temporary custody of children is granted to the petitioner. |
| PD |
Petitioner is awarded use and possession of the shared dwelling.
(This condition differs from the condition XR above in that PD merely
indicates that the petitioner is awarded temporary possession of the
dwelling but, given the petitioner's consent, does not prohibit the
respondent from entering the dwelling. PD would typically be used with a
"No Harm" order, while XR would more typically be used with a "No Contact"
order.) |
| FR |
Respondent is ordered by the Court not to ship, transport, possess, or
receive any firearm or ammunition. |
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What if a Hot File Record indicates that the Order has not yet been served?
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Now that automated information about unserved orders
will be available to criminal justice agencies statewide, law enforcement
officials, jailers, and probation officers are being asked to assist the
Sheriff's Department with serving orders whenever feasible. Until the order
is served, criminal justice employees are instructed not to inform the
respondent of the existence of the order.
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Does the OFP Database include
all types of Protection Orders?
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No, only Domestic Abuse Orders for Protection are
included in the Order for Protection Database. In Minnesota, this includes
only those orders issued pursuant to MSS 518B.01. Other types of protection
orders such as tribal protection orders, criminal no-contact orders,
harassment restraining orders, or protection orders embedded in divorce
decrees are not included in the database at this time.
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Are all active Domestic Abuse OFPs
now in the Statewide Database?
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No, all active OFP records have not yet been entered.
Counties were gradually being automated throughout 1998. As counties became
automated, they may only have had the staff time to enter orders issued
from that day forward, so orders that are still active, but were issued
prior to that county becoming automated may be absent from the database.
Check with the district court in your county to determine if ALL
active orders are being automated, or if that county is automating only
newly-issued orders on a "roll forward" basis.
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What if my county is only entering
on a "Roll-Forward" basis?
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In this instance, protected parties with older active
orders may not have as great an assurance of police protection because law
enforcement will not have the same level of information to act upon. If
possible, assist the courts in identifying which, if any, older active
orders have been issued against the most potentially dangerous respondents
and ask the courts to make a special effort to enter these orders into the
database. Court personnel will be asked to honor these special requests
whenever possible.
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What else can Advocates do to help
make this new system more effective?
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- Advise the victim/petitioner of the existence of this new database and
the expected law enforcement response.
- Assist the victim in providing, on the petition, as much identifying
information about the respondent as possible, including the respondent's
full name, date of birth, any aliases the respondent may use, and
complete, accurate physical description. Physical descriptors currently
included in the database are sex, race, height, weight, eye color, and
hair color. The more accurate a description provided to law enforcement,
the more likely law enforcement is to act upon that information.
Inaccurate or incomplete information may prevent law enforcement from
obtaining the information they need to protect victims.
- Ensure that the victim includes on the petition the accurate spelling
of the name(s), date(s) of birth, sex(es), and race(s) of all protected
parties.
- If the victim is unsure of the respondent's name spelling or date of
birth, contact your local court to ask their assistance in obtaining
this information from databases available to them through Driver and
Vehicle Services records.
- Ask the victim/petitioner if protected address information should be
included in the OFP Hot File record. In most instances, protected
address information should be included in the Hot File record. However,
if the respondent is a member of the criminal justice community with
direct access to this information, the victim/petitioner may be better
protected by keeping address information out of the Hot File record.
- Remind the victim/petitioner to continue to carry a copy of the Order
at all times, and to notify courts and law enforcement of any changes in
address.
- Continue to work with law enforcement personnel to assist them in
understanding their role in the protection of victims of domestic abuse,
including enforcement of all Orders for Protection, regardless of the
county, state, or tribe of issue, in accordance with the Violence
Against Women Act's (VAWA) Full Faith and Credit provision and Minnesota
State Statute 518B.01. Law enforcement in Minnesota is obligated to
enforce protection orders from other states, tribes, and territories,
even though they are not included in the Minnesota
database.
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What changes/improvements are
currently being considered?
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- The Supreme Court has completed a VAWA grant request for money to
improve the OFP System in several ways. One area of improvement would be
to provide funding to enable the entry of older active Orders for
Protection. Another projected improvement would be the inclusion of
other types of protection orders, such as harassment restraining orders,
in the Statewide database. A decision on federal approval of this grant
request is expected in 1999. If funded, programming to allow entry of
additional types of protection orders would probably take up to two
additional years.
- A "Short Form OFP Notification" form is currently being considered by
the Minnesota legislature. If approved by the legislature as envisioned,
the "Short Form" would enable a law enforcement officer to serve
official notice of an Order for Protection using a form that would be
completed much like a traffic ticket whenever an officer comes in
contact with an unserved respondent. Such a form, if approved by the
legislature, could greatly increase the likelihood of providing service
to a respondent who may be otherwise difficult to locate and serve using
conventional means. Service is, of course, essential because Orders for
Protection may not be enforceable until they have been served.
- Legislation has been proposed that would permit service of Orders for
Protection on holidays, Sundays, and after sundown.
- Legislation has been proposed that would permit a reasonable period
for detaining a respondent to allow time for service to be completed,
when necessary.
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VAWA AND/OR FEDERAL WEAPONS PROHIBITIONS
Battered Women's Legal Advocacy Project
(651) 649-3620 or (800) 313-2666
National Resource Center on Domestic Violence
Battered Women's Justice Project
(Criminal justice system issues)
(612) 824-8768 or (800) 903-0111
Full Faith & Credit Project (Civil court issues)
(717) 671-4767 or (80O) 903-0111, ext. 2.
VAWA IMMIGRATION RELIEF
Centro Legal, Inc.
(651) 642-1890 or (800) 245-5753
Immigrant Law Center
(651) 291-0110 or (800) 223-1368
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
(612) 341-3302
OTHER OFP-RELATED QUESTIONS
Battered Women's Legal Advocacy Project
(651) 649-3620 or (800) 313-2666
Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women
(651) 646-6177 or (800) 289-6177
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Please call the Minnesota Center for Crime Victim Services at (651)
282-6256 if you would like more information or have questions about this
information.
This information is taken from a brochure prepared by
the
Minnesota B.C.A. and is used with their permission.
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