It is within this section that the criminal arrest history of each person booked at the Ouachita Correctional Center is maintained. One of the duties of the section is to forward on to the Louisiana State Police and the Federal Bureau of Identification the record of an individual's arrest via fingerprints. A large portion of the work in ID is serving the public by performing criminal arrest checks and fingerprinting. In recent years, there has been a huge increase in the number of employers who require these criminal record checks and fingerprinting. Also, all public housing and many private apartment complexes require this record check service.
Identification processes physical evidence for latent print impressions.
Then upon request, latent print examinations are performed to identify a suspect as having been at the scene of the crime. This also requires ID personnel to appear in court to testify to the findings of these examinations. Members of the Identification Section are on teams of the OPSO Crime Scene Unit. This requires them to go to a crime scene and process it for physical evidence, and to testify in court. ID maintains a latent fingerprint file of prints submitted by other deputies.