	Background

Federal law enforcement agencies pursue fugitives wanted for crimes that fall within their jurisdictions. FBI, USMS, and ATF policies for entering fugitives onto the wanted person file required entry shortly after the arrest warrant, notice of escape, or other document authorizing detention was issued: the FBI and USMS required immediate entry, meaning within 24 hours; ATF allowed up to 10 days for entry if the delay served a law enforcement purpose. Customs Service policy called for entry after reasonable efforts to locate the fugitive had failed and essentially defined “reasonable” as being after all investigative leads on the fugitive’s location have been exhausted. Figure 2 illustrates the entry times for the 7,864 FBI, USMS, ATF, and Customs Service fugitive records with a caution notation on the wanted person file as of April 6, 1994, and the entry times for the 1,838 of these caution-noted records that were entered after September 30, 1993. However, our comparison of NCIC entries with arrest warrant dates revealed that only 31 percent of the FBI’s entries overall and 34 percent of caution fugitive entries were made on the same day of the arrest warrant, and 48 percent and 50 percent, respectively, were made by the end of the next day. Nor did they have information on the reasons for delays in entering fugitives. Moreover, it seems reasonable that timely entries would be of concern to law enforcement organizations in other federal agencies. Specifically, we sought to identify (1) how long federal agencies took to enter fugitives onto the wanted person file; (2) what information the agencies had on entry times and the means used to monitor entry times; and (3) what actions agencies took, considered, or could take to reduce any entry delays. We focused on the FBI, INS, USMS, ATF, and the Customs Service.
Why GAO Did This Study

GAO reviewed the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) National Crime Information Center (NCIC) wanted person file, focusing on the: (1) length of time it takes federal law enforcement agencies to enter fugitives onto the file; (2) information that agencies have on data entry times and the means used to monitor entry times; and (3) agencies' plans to reduce entry delays.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) require that fugitives be entered onto the wanted persons file within one day after an arrest warrant is issued; (2) the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) allows up to ten days for data entry if the delay serves a valid law enforcement purpose; (3) the Customs Service requires data entry after reasonable efforts to locate a fugitive have failed; (4) the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has no policy regarding the timeliness of data entry; (5) 28 percent of FBI, USMS, ATF, and Customs' entries are made one day after issuance of the arrest warrant, 54 percent within one week, and 70 percent within four weeks; (6) data entry times for dangerous fugitives do not differ substantially from overall data entry times; (7) ATF and Customs do not monitor their data entry times or know the reasons for delays in entering fugitives on the wanted persons file; (8) FBI found that there are delays in between 30 and 50 percent of its data entries, with a median delay of about one week; and (9) all the federal law enforcement agencies plan to take action to minimize data entry delays.