Retention of fingerprint cards

[ren6197]

Hello!

I have a question that I am hoping you all can shed some light on.

I recently moved from California and now am working in Virginia as a LPE. In our unit we have filing cabinets full of 10-print cards, whenever somebody gets booked the deputy prints a card, has the arrestee physically sign the back of it attesting that it is their prints and sends them to our unit to be filed. My first question when I saw these cabinets full of cards was why are we retaining the physical copy of the cards? The cards are being sent electronically to the State of Virginia and as well to our local AFIS database. When we want to start a comparison, I could simply print the known print cards from the state or local database and use those. In California that is how we worked our cases as well, all known prints were filed electronically in databases, no cards were physically printed by the deputy to be forwarded to our unit (I worked for a couple of different agencies and did it the same way).

So my question is why should we here in Virginia be physically storing these cards? Is there a reason I am not understanding (which is most likely the case! ) We are running out of room in our small unit and just ordered a couple more cabinets to file cards that we don't even need to effect a comparison, I would love to not print these out and they just be stored in the electronic databases but I feel like I am missing something. Does anyone's agency print and file these as well? If so, what is the reason? I was told that because they are physically signing the back of the card it makes it a document that we have to retain, I totally get that but what if we didn't make them sign the back of the card, can we get past that rule? Is there not a button that they can "electronically sign" when the deputy is done capturing their prints?

Thanks for any input!

[Bill Schade]

The title of the thread should be printing and filing fingerprint cards. As you correctly point out, you are already retaining them electronically.

When we started using live scan in the 90's we had a problem with subjects "signing" the wrong fingerprint cards due to the lag between completing print capture and printing of the card. When I decided to stop having cards signed I ran into immediate push back and a hundred reasons from staff on why "they have to sign the cards"

A simple investigation revealed that not one reason held up to scrutiny and there is no requirement or reason to sign fingerprint cards. It has not been done here for 20 years.

That being said, we have been printing the live scan fingerprint cards and filing them all this time (I admit to being Old school) but it is the next process we are about to eliminate (we have not printed palm cards for over ten years). Although we still have many "legacy" fingerprint cards with information written on them that is not captured in our AFIS, our NIST Archive, or the state system, the current bookings are completely digital and the printed card is rarely accessed after it is filed. Not printing the palm cards has caused no problems for anyone.

So the answer to your question would be, look beyond your Latent Print operation and make sure someone else isn't counting on those printed cards, but don't accept the response, "we have always done it that way"

[ren6197]

Thanks for your reply Bill!

We sound like we are in the same boat! I would love to eliminate the printed cards, I just have to make sure there is something I may not be understanding about them and the need to be printed. I did read up on the Virginia statute and it does state in there that we need to retain the fingerprint records for 99 years (some special cases less) but it does not say that they need to be signed and printed, I am guessing that the electronic version will be okay.

I am hoping to speak with Virginia State Police tomorrow about the necessity of doing this, but that would be really cool if someone reading this was from Virginia and was NOT printing the cards. I would love to know if you ever ran into any problems? If life is great without printing and filing them?

Thanks again Bill, your info was very useful! If you come across a problem while you guys are going through the transition, I would love to hear about it!

Thanks!

Reyna

[josher89]

We stopped printing a copy of a livescan card for our records when we last upgraded AFIS in 2007. The reason is what you mentioned--they are being transmitted electronically. Our state statute indicates that cards from felony arrests and serious misdemeanors need to get forwarded to the State Patrol for retention. We are trying to re-write this since many jails are taking it as they don't have to fingerprint for anything other than what the statute says must be forwarded to the State Patrol. Yea, that's been an uphill battle.

Anyway, the need to retain physical cards is non-existent now. We can retrieve a copy from AFIS and it just saves us space. We got rid of the FP file cabinet a while ago and while it was neat to look through some of the really old cards (prior to the 50s), there just wasn't a reason anymore. And no heartburn was created because of that decision.

[ren6197]

We stopped printing a copy of a livescan card for our records when we last upgraded AFIS in 2007. The reason is what you mentioned--they are being transmitted electronically. Our state statute indicates that cards from felony arrests and serious misdemeanors need to get forwarded to the State Patrol for retention. We are trying to re-write this since many jails are taking it as they don't have to fingerprint for anything other than what the statute says must be forwarded to the State Patrol. Yea, that's been an uphill battle.

Anyway, the need to retain physical cards is non-existent now. We can retrieve a copy from AFIS and it just saves us space. We got rid of the FP file cabinet a while ago and while it was neat to look through some of the really old cards (prior to the 50s), there just wasn't a reason anymore. And no heartburn was created because of that decision.

Thank you for your reply! Are you finding trying to re-write statute pretty tough? Do you remember ever getting grief about not having the physical signature on the physical cards when you all stopped printing them?

Thanks so much!

Reyna