T hey came in through the bathroom window. I had made it easy for them. I left the window open to try to capture a small slice of the delta breeze on a hot Sacramento summer night. In, Garbage Out Fingerprints have been a law enforcement staple since Scotland Yard first adopted them as a unique identifier in 1887, but with today's high-tech systems, the key to success may still come down to the officer on the scene. Fingerprints are the best evidence there is, period.
Fingerprints are easy to leave, easy to pick up and easy to explain.
Since the advent of AFIS technology, the fingerprint has become an even more powerful piece of evidence and, though the initial installation can be expensive, law enforcement professionals familiar with the technology swear that it pays off in convictions and a drop in crime rates across the board. AFIS does makes its biggest impact on property crimes, but as AFIS helped us nail burglars in San Francisco, the incidence of forcible rape plummeted as well. Moses and other law enforcement experts also recommend that whether an agency invests in its own AFIS system or utilizes a state or regional system, they should expect to pony up the bucks for a professional crime- scene investigator. Statistically, about one-third of cases reported will have usable latent prints, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Of that group, jurisdictions with AFIS and a crime-scene investigator can expect to come up with positive identifications on 20 percent of the usable latent prints they run.