Right now, McMillan s staff hand roll about 300 to 350 prints every day using the traditional ink and paper method. If a mistake is made or the prints or smudged or smeared, they might not be readable once they reach the DPS database, in which case, the jailer has to start all over rolling the prints again, she said. With the new live scan system, if the prints are unreadable or not good quality, the computer alerts jailers and they can be instantly rescanned on the spot. The first local site with live scan technology became operational in 1998. The state targeted large metropolitan areas and medium-sized areas to be the recipients of the live scan technology because they have a high volume of arrests at their booking sites.
More arrests mean more fingerprints entered into the state system for comparison.
And using live scan technology at local booking sites is beneficial to the state because DPS staff don t have to handle paper cards or type data into the system, which eliminates the potential for errors, Draper said. The DPS also gets higher quality prints through electronic reporting, he said. However, not every law enforcement agency that uses electronic fingerprint reporting received the technology through the CJPC grants. Some counties, like Bell County, obtained the technology through another federal grant. Harris County used local funds to install and maintain a remote AFIS terminal and live scan system, but Draper said that wasn t an option for most law enforcement entities because of the cost.