AFIS Databases

[elmoree]

Hello everyone,

Does your state AFIS house known fingerprints from criminals and non-criminal applicants in the same database? Or are criminal fingerprints separate from non-criminal applicant fingerprints? Are non-criminal applicant fingerprints searchable to all agencies with an AFIS link? If your state AFIS contains separate databases for criminals and applicants, do you know the reasoning behind that decision? Is the separate database for non-criminal applicants routinely searched or is it only searched in special cases (homicides, sex assaults, etc.)

I'm conducting an empirical study on AFIS identifications and wanted to know if other states allowed searching of non-criminal applicant cards.

Thank you for your response,
E. Dominguez, Criminalist
Centennial, CO

[ER]

Our state system has everyone in the same database. Applicants, clearance cards, and criminals are all searched together, but each record indicates why the card is in the database. We get lots of AFIS hits to victims and officers.

(There are a couple exceptions where certain professions get fingerprint clearance through different parts of the agency and some are scanned into the database and others are just searched against it.)

[josher89]

Our state (Nebraska) keeps all fingerprint records in the same "database", albeit they will have different nomenclature to differentiate which group they belong to. So, all criminal cards have a certain prefix, all applicants have a certain prefix, all juveniles have a certain prefix, all sex offenders have a certain prefix, etc. Within applicants, there are a few different types: CCW, hazmat, taxi, etc. All are identifed based on the prefix of each ID number.

Database, by the way, (as I gave it quotes) refers to one system; we utilize one AFIS for all cards. We don't have several AFIS's (sp?) for all types of cards but we can differentiate between cards as stated above. And, we search all the fingerprint records every time we search. We don't have the option to only search certain databases, unless we add filters, like age, to limit our search. And, as ER stated, we too get a lot of hits to victims, police officers, etc. by doing normal searches.

[elmoree]

Thank you for your responses. Do you report the victim, officer, etc. identifications? Or are these identifications ignored since they will not help the investigation?

Erinn