Page 189 - Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS)

174 AUTOMATED FINGERPRINT IDENTIFICATION SYSTEMS

8.5.1 OBTAINING LATENT PRINTS

According to many television shows, police departments have specially trained
personnel armed with very sophisticated equipment who can descend on a
crime scene within a matter of minutes after discovery. The evidence they
collect is put into a plastic bag and whisked to “the lab,” and within a very short
time the perpetrator is identified and the rap sheet is being sent down “from
the state.” That is the popular media version, but the facts lie somewhere else.
To understand the problem of statistical application of latent print hit rate,
one must look at the very beginning of the process. This section examines the
latent print capture and entry practices of two hypothetical agencies. Questions
to consider about these practices include the following:

1. Where do the lifts come from?
2. Who lifts the latent prints at a crime scene?
3. What types of crimes usually have lifts collected?
4. Are elimination prints taken?
5. Who searches the latent prints on the system?

Each of these questions is discussed in the sections below.

8.5.1.1 Where Do the Lifts Come From?
While generally thought of as the originating department, the agency that
retrieved the prints might search other AFIS systems in addition to their own
“native” AFIS. A search of the criminal IAFIS database by a non-federal agency
would be an example. (As a professional courtesy, identification agencies will
search latent prints against their database at the request of another law enforce-
ment agency. Typically done on an available time and resource basis, searching
latent prints on other databases is an encouraged practice.) So the answer to
the question of where the latent prints come from depends on whether the
latent prints were retrieved by an agency that launched a latent to tenprint
search on their own AFIS system, or whether the identification was made as a
result of another law enforcement agency submitting the latent print for search.
Who is considered to have made the latent print identification in such as
case: the submitting agency, the agency that made the ident, or both? The
agency that originally collected the latent images certainly can claim that their
latent prints led to the identification and therefore the case. The agency that
searched the latent print on their AFIS system invested staff time, talent, and
expertise into making the ident. The managers in these departments would like
to report that they made the identification (perhaps the “big break”) on the
case. Who is entitled to claim credit for the identification?