CRJS406 DB4

CRJS406-DB4

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Class

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Professor

Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System

Fingerprints leave impressions on surfaces and since every fingerprint is unique to one individual they are valuable information for any police investigation. The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) is a digital imaging system used to scan fingerprints and then match the fingerprints to fingerprints in the system. In the past law enforcement would have to hand match a fingerprint to the fingerprint suspect in a police case. With IAFIS police can identify a criminal suspect or people present at a crime scene to a one hundred percent certainty.

The steps for utilizing IAFIS always begin with getting fingerprints from potential suspects and then the information is transported into the IAFIS system. There are currently over 5million fingerprint cards in the system. When the fingerprints at the crime scene n have been developed they will also be scanned into the AFIS system to be matched against fingerprints located in the system (Rouse, 2011). The system will generate the three closets and then the fingerprint technician will compare these matches to the fingerprints found at the crime scene. The latent print examiner will examine the print and do a match by comparing two prints.

The advantages of the use of IAFIS is latent print examiners no longer has to spend hours hand matching fingerprints to suspects in a crime. During this time unknown suspects would not be matched because police were not looking for them. Since the creation of IAFIS criminal suspects not even identified by police can be located and ties to a crime. Fingerprints are a valuable tool for alerting police to potential suspects in a crime. The potential disadvantage of the system is there are ethical issues that surface through its use and it is an expensive technology.

IAFIS is a system which stores the fingerprints of criminals, the missing, and public servants. Anyone who works for the government or the military will be fingerprinted and this private information is then placed in IAFIS. Since the fingerprint information is collected from criminal suspect, not criminal offender this information is basically seized by the government and then can be used as police see fit. Even if a criminal suspect is later to be found not guilty their private fingerprint information will still be stored in the system.

Many find this to be a violation of the rights of the citizen. Despite the critics IAFFIS is valuable to identifying criminal suspects. Other complaints involve the potential abuse of the fingerprint system. There is a very slim possibility the system could be subject to abuse but since it is an automated system it would be harder to manipulate. The IAFIS system has been an extremely valuable tool for solving all types of crimes with few complaints of abuse or deception.

References

Rouse, M. (2011). Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). Retrieved August 17,

2013 from http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/Automated-Fingerprint-Identific