Sponsors (12)
Introduced April 30, 2026 by Russell Fry · Last progress April 30, 2026
The bill aims to strengthen public safety and prosecutions by centralizing and expanding criminal-conviction sharing and public access, at the cost of heightened privacy risks, potential harms to listed individuals, financial and administrative burdens, and federal-state tensions.
Law enforcement and prosecutors gain a centralized, quarterly-updated federal registry and clearer visibility into gaps in records-sharing, enabling faster identification of repeat violent offenders, stronger prosecutions, and potentially reduced recidivism.
Members of the public get free, searchable access to convictions involving violent offenses, increasing situational awareness and public safety in communities.
Local governments can receive redirected Byrne JAG funds if their State fails to submit required data, providing an alternate funding route for local public-safety programs.
The aggregated database publicly exposes sensitive personal data (including race, address, and citizenship), creating substantial privacy and data-security risks and increasing the danger of stigma or vigilante harm for listed people — risks that disproportionately affect racial minorities and immigrants.
Erroneous or outdated conviction records — with only quarterly updates and limited removal triggers — could harm individuals' reputations, employment prospects, and other economic opportunities.
States risk losing Byrne JAG funds for noncompliance, which could reduce resources for local crime-prevention and public-safety services, especially if funds are withheld before any redirection takes effect.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates a public, searchable federal database of qualifying violent convictions, requires state data submission tied to Byrne JAG grants, and orders a DOJ report on record sharing.
Creates a free, public, searchable federal database of people with qualifying violent criminal convictions and requires states to submit qualifying conviction data or face withholding of certain federal Byrne JAG grant funds. The Attorney General must build the database within 180 days, update it at least quarterly, remove records that become legally inoperative (expunged, vacated, pardoned), and include many personal and case-level searchable fields. Also requires the Attorney General to report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees within 180 days describing how criminal records are shared among states and with the federal government, identifying procedural barriers to sharing that harm the public, and recommending actions for better information sharing among prosecutors and law enforcement.