Page 259 - Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS)

244 AUTOMATED FINGERPRINT IDENTIFICATION SYSTEMS

Since SAFIS serves the entire state, latent print examiners can search this
database whether they are in the Latent Print Section of the New York City
Police Department, the Suffolk County Police Department, the Latent Print
Unit at DCJS, or any other location within the state. This provides a more com-
plete database than any single city or county might have and also allows the
SAFIS to be administered by one central agency.
Except for the latent print staff at DCJS, all other latent print staff at the
regional sites are employed by the local law enforcement agency. To access the
latent print services of DCJS, the law enforcement agency must complete a use
and dissemination agreement and other agreements that specify the proper
handling of the equipment. In most instances, the equipment is owned and
maintained by DCJS.
When the inked tenprint records were converted to digital images starting
in 1988, the minutiae and other image characteristics were extracted using
then state-of-the-art coder software. Likewise, the matchers that compared the
images from the submitted records to the image characteristics in the SAFIS
database were also state-of-the-art at the time of their introduction.

10.2 PLAN FOR INCREASED LATENT
PRINT IDENTIFICATIONS
To maintain continuity and provide the best opportunity to make as many latent
print identifications as possible, DCJS embarked on a plan to increase the
number of latent print identifications using SAFIS. Elements of this plan
included the following:

1. Continual training of latent print examiners on the use of the SAFIS
equipment.
2. Meeting with latent print managers to stress the value of SAFIS.
3. Exploiting system opportunities to use SAFIS to make more identifications.

To meet the first objective, a plan was developed for SAFIS system managers
to meet with latent print examiners at their offices twice a year. These face-to-
face meetings provided an opportunity to respond to any questions about the
functionality of SAFIS and to suggest improvements to make more identifica-
tions. A recommendation, for example, might be to allow the coder to find the
minutiae on a latent print image to provide consistency with the way that the
coder will place the minutiae on enrolled images on the SAFIS database. As a
follow-up, the examiner might then replicate the image and select minutiae
and other characteristics. Latent print examiners might also suggest improve-
ment to the system, such as easier access rights so that managers could assign