WASHINGTON—The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) today selected four states – Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio – to participate in a policy academy that will assist states in improving how they capture, share and analyze information related to identity theft in an effort to improve investigation and prosecution of these crimes.

The primary objective of the Combating Identity Theft Policy Academy is to develop a strategic plan to provide selected states with roadmaps to more effectively combat identity theft through the improved collection and use of information related to these crimes. States will have the opportunity to consider strategies for improving how crime reports are collected from victims, how information is shared among law enforcement agencies and how disparate information across jurisdictions is aggregated and analyzed. The project is being supported by the U.S. Department of Justice National Institute of Justice.

"Identity theft is an evolving crime that must be met with state-of-the-art protection techniques," said John Thomasian, director of the NGA Center for Best Practices. "This policy academy will help states work through some of the challenges they face when dealing with improving the investigation and prosecution of identity theft."

Identity theft continues to be one of the fastest growing crimes in the United States. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently reported that identity theft is the more reported fraud complaint with over 300,000 reports of identity theft received in 2008. Despite this large number, however, the FTC also estimates than more than 65 percent of victims of theft do not report the crime to law enforcement. In other words, more than 850,000 cases of identity theft may be committed in the United States each year.

For more information go to www.nga.org/center/sewp.

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Founded in 1908, the National Governors Association (NGA) is the collective voice of the nation's governors and one of Washington, D.C.'s most respected public policy organizations. Its members are the governors of the 50 states, three territories and two commonwealths. NGA provides governors and their senior staff members with services that range from representing states on Capitol Hill and before the Administration on key federal issues to developing and implementing innovative solutions to public policy challenges through the NGA Center for Best Practices. For more information, go to www.nga.org.