This division, historically known as ID, expanded its role and responsibilities in December 1992 when AFIS came on line. This computerized system has made it virtually impossible for repeat offenders to claim an identity other than their true one. The best known responsibility of this division is the performance of crime scene searches. Highly trained personnel search for forensic evidence and must process and record these searches with absolute precision. The division provides expert witness testimony about fingerprints for all criminal courts in Harris County.
Evidence technicians search for, recover, and process forensic evidence.
In 1999, these technicians worked 436 crime scenes. AFIS builds and maintains an ever-growing database of fingerprints, which now numbers in excess of 700,000. All persons entering the system are fingerprinted and those prints are matched against the entire database in seconds. AFIS also allows latent prints recovered from crime scenes to be matched against the database. The Firearms Lab receives firearms and related evidence from the department and from law enforcement agencies throughout southeast Texas.