Flawed Fingerprinting

By Research Services 5 Brothers, LLC

The United States Department of Justice recommends utilizing consumer reporting agencies as a source to receive the most up-to-date and accurate information regarding criminal cases, as the FBI maintained system is missing an astonishing fifty percent of the final dispositions on their records. You may be asking yourself why does the FBI not have access to all records in real-time. The FBI system was created for the use of the government, then gradually allowed the use of their system for employment purposes. Not having the most up-to-date information on cases is a local and state-level issue. Believe it or not, it is entirely possible to commit a crime in one county of a state, and then commit a crime in another county, and the jurisdictions may not make the connection between the two through fingerprinting alone. This is due in part to privatized fingerprinting companies and a lack of connectivity between jurisdictions. Not all cities connect with their state, and not all states connect with other states (including their surrounding states). An example of this, that only recently changed would be Houston, Texas. Houston is the largest city in Texas and the fourth largest in the country. Houston is located in Harris County, however previously Harris County and Houston had separate fingerprinting vendors and they were not sharing information universally. Another example of this lack of connectivity shines a light on how criminals can continue at the cost of public safety. Alabama had an unfortunate event of a robbery and homicide. They were able to successfully pull a print from the crime scene, however, they did not have connectivity to the FBI. This resulted in ten more fatalities from someone you may know as the “DC Sniper”. There were prints on file for this person in the immigration and naturalization database. Those deaths could have been avoided had they had the proper connection. There are an estimated 600 systems between federal, state, and local levels. Until the government enforces a cohesive connection between all three levels, it is imperative to use the aid of a consumer reporting agency.

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