AFIS Database Management

[Steph]

We are trying to set up our business rules regarding when to purge out latent prints that have been registered to our unsolved database in AFIS. Is anyone willing to share how your agency handles the database management.

[Bill Schade]

I have always used a digit in the Latent case number entered in AFIS to designate "crime type".
Cases can then be deleted by statute of limitations of that Crime catagory

[Steph]

Thanks for the response.

So if for example a burglary has a statute of between 3 and 5 years, would you use the 5 years? And that would be for any case submitted with only a burglary charge?

[Bill Schade]

Correct

I would wait till the end of the fifth year in your example

[Bill]

Bill Schade give good advice. You could perhaps also consult your prosecutor's office for a specific opinion as to what they are willing to prosecute.

Bill R

[Steph]

Thank you both so much. Your advice is greatly appreciated.

[ER]

We've been through this but it was a challenge.

In our state there is technically no statute of limitations on anything. However, the prosecutor won't prosecute on most misdemeanor's after 1 year or most minor felonies after a few years. However, they won't write that down. No one in the lab or the agency wanted to commit to picking a time frame. We finally put into the AFIS policies that each agency would have to pick a time frame of no more than 7 years to delete minor crimes.

For your situation, the max years on the statute seems like a logical choice.

If you can, work hard now to set up guidelines for how long to keep each type of crime. You will have to remove even homicide latents eventually. 50 years, 100 years, 1000 years. Eventually, even the homicide latents need to come out. Forever is a very long time.

[Steph]

We have noticed it isn't an easy answer. We have new management and while we have had this newer system for a few years we hadn't set anything up to manage the database. We asked the property section but they do it on a case by case basis after significant research which isn't really practical since we service several cities. Apparently even when there is a statute it isn't always cut and dry. We were told if someone has several priors or if they find out later that two crimes were connected, the time frame changes.

We thought we would find out what other agencies do and if they have business rules they are willing to share but so far this is the only place people have had any ideas/suggestions. I am not sure if most places have IT handle it or hadn't really thought about the database getting too big with cases that will never be prosecuted.

I like the idea of using the longest date from the statute. I also like the idea of asking agencies and the prosecutors for their input in case there is anything additional we need to consider. Hopefully we can all work together to come to the an agreement that works for everyone.

[ER]

Even with no statute of limitations, we remove latents from Property Crimes from reverse search after 7 years. Other nearby agencies have chosen as few as 3 years for Property Crimes. Again, with no hard statute of limitations.