Civilians taking booking prints in Jails, anywhere?

[FINGERMARK]

Hello all,

We at King County are trying to find comps for our Jail ID position.

Is anyone aware of any County that has Civilian (ID Technicians, in our case) rolling booking / know prints in a Jail setting?

This does not seem to be common. Most places obviously have Correctional Officers doing this tasks.

For what it is worth; we believe we get better knowns into our database by having specialist doing this. Also, it helps with cooperation from the inmates that civilians are taking the prints.

That's all; thanks for any information anyone can provide.

Mark JD Roberts, CLPE
Vice Pres. KC Regional AFIS Guild, Seattle

[Bill Schade]

Historically the Fingereprint Technicians at this agency worked 7X24 in the fingerprint section. The job was clerical/technical in nature and revolved around maintaining the "fingerprint files" which were organized by Henry Classification and existed in paper form in about 30 fingerprint file cabinets. The fingerprint Technicians worked in the same office as the Latent Print Exanminers and there was quite a bit of interaction between the two groups as the mission was accomplished. Fingerprint Technicians also provided the service of fingerprinting the public. That became a major part of the duties of day shift technicians as we saw an increase in fingerprinting of job applicants.

In 2008 it became necessary to explore ways to reduce our agencies budget. One of the ways this was accomplished was to move the staff of fingerprint technicians to our Jail and task them with the additional responsibility of fingerprinting subject being booked.

I have attached a link to an article that was written about this transition for those that have an interst.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/101 ... rticle.pdf

I am especially proud that we accomplished this transition and don't think there are many other fingerprint shops that could have picked up and moved twelve members in a 3 week window of time and keep operations running smoothly

So to answer the question posed by Mark in Seattle, Yes, we have civilians fingerprinting at the jail

[Bill Schade]

And here is the Job description of Fingerprint Tech I along with the salary range

Scroll down to Fingerprint Tech I and select it to see the job description


http://www.pcsoweb.com/administration/h ... criptions/

[Bill Schade]

Finally

Here is an article on the role of fingerprint technicians at the jail. It has proven to be a good move and one of those things that make me say "why didn't we think of this sooner"

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafe ... ail/992824

[FINGERMARK]

Thanks Bill,

Great info!

Mark

[Angie]

My agency has used civilians for many years and the quality of their work far surpasses any that I get from outside agencies who have the arresting officer doing the fingerprinting! When we first started having a civilian intake office I would show them identifications I made with known impressions that they took just so they were aware of how vital they were to the whole criminal justice system!

I will email you the job description.

[Bill Schade]

One of the things I have done for years is send a screen shot of all our reverse hits to the booking officers at our jail. Their captain would attach a cover memo for an "atta boy" on each and every one. Something to the effect of "the set of prints you took resulted in a case closure"

We had excellent prints taken by our booking officers and they took palm prints on most arrests. I think the policy of positive feedback helped gain their coopeeration

At least we had a pretty consistent crew of deputies assigned to the print room, I told them that live scan was an AFIS terminal, so they reported to a Captain at the jail, but they really worked for me

I can't imagine having to rely on arresting officers to capture prints when they might only do it a few times a year. Practice makes a huge difference as everyone on this board knows.

But we also have to realize the limits of our influence on policy. We can only do so much to change the outside world. And the booking process is certainly outside the sphere of the Latent print examiner. We can ask nicely and we can give feedback, but we work with what we get.

[josher89]

Up until around 2007, our CSI personnel were the ones responsible for booking all arrests made by county deputies or any other smaller municipality outside of the major city in our county (the city had their own jail). We were somewhat reluctant to give up the booking process only because of the fingerprinting aspect.

At the beginning of 2007 (when the city jail was shut down and combined with the county jail), in a three-week transition period, we accompanied the arrestee down to the jail (or met the arresting deputy there) and assisting the jailers with the booking process (from initial intake and charges to fingerprints and photographs). I was really worried about the 'Garbage in, garbage out' fingerprint scenario but this was not the case. I've worked closely with the booking manager and have submitted atta-boys to the CO's when we identify a latent print to a print in AFIS that was rolled by them. This not only re-enforces their role as a fingerprint taker, but hopefully lets them know how important it is to take good prints.

I've seen some crap prints but I've seen them from everywhere. On a whole, they are doing a great job and I don't feel as reluctant anymore. In doing some of the 10-print QCs, I have the opportunity to fire some back if they are sub-quality but I rarely have to do this. They understand their role; since they are housing these individuals, it makes sense to have them perform the bookings. Why we did it the way before is beyond me but it works now and I'm happy with the results.