COME next month, it will take the police 35 seconds to identify wanted persons during spot checks and less than five minutes to retrieve police records, with the newly acquired Automated Palm and Fingerprint Identification System (APFIS).

Through the use of a hand-held device – part of a larger electronic criminal fingerprint database – the police can search the main database of fingerprints on spot to locate a match. If a match is found, the officers will not only have access to criminal records but a picture of the suspect as well.

The system, which cost US$3.61 million, is expected to greatly boost the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF’s) crime-fighting capabilities.

In fact, yesterday Security Minister Peter Phillips, who was touring the police’s computer centre at Duke Street, downtown Kingston, said the system would ensure that crime does not pay.

“Added to this technology, we will be able to conclude investigations more rapidly and hopefully raise the percentage of cleared-up crime which is critical to clearing out criminality generally,” he said.

In addition, Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas told the Observer that the entire APFIS would help to drastically reduce the time that persons are held by the police without being charged.

“When we pick up people, some of them are held for two to three days awaiting fingerprints and the pressure we come under from human rights groups for keeping people in custody will definitely be out through the window,” he said.

But apart from assisting the police in its crime-fighting efforts, the system, the police commissioner said, would also expedite the process for those persons awaiting police records and permits to gain employment or travel abroad.

“Currently, it (fingerprint search) is done manually, and so if you applied for a police certificate or permit, you would be waiting some two to three months, so the turnaround time will be very positive,” Thomas told the Observer.

The APFIS, which has already been installed at the police’s computer centre on Duke Street, will become operational in October, with full implementation islandwide by next January. The system is to be installed at sites in Clarendon, St Mary and St James, by the end of the month.

Already, there are 12 such hand-held devices in the island being used as part of a training process to equip persons operating the system. Phillips said a number of these devices would be ordered and issued to the police on a need basis.

“It is only the mobile patrols and some of the other teams that we will give them [to] so we have to determine how many of those we will need, now that we have had the system up and running,” the minister said.

In addition, the minister said a further batch of police and civilians would be trained in the use of the system, come next week.

Edgar Montes Lopez, conversion manager at SAGEM – providers of the system – said the database can hold some 236,000 prints and 3,400 latent prints, with the capacity for expansion as the need arises. He said the system would be backed-up daily and the information stored in several safe locations.

Lopez also pointed out that one aspect of the system, known as a laboratory acquisition station, would capture prints from objects found at crime scenes which, if removed, could destroy the prints.

“Sometimes you have an object at a crime scene that you cannot lift because if you lift that print it will be destroyed, so the camera takes the print and performs a search of the latent against the prints in the database,” he explained.

Lopez said now when a suspect is stopped by the police, the fingerprints will be listed in the database system. “The next time he does something, we will have a record and we will be able to make an identification in five minutes,” he said.

He said the system performs automatic searches and provides a close match to the print being searched for.

“Once you perform a search you have an answer of 98 per cent sure that it is the right person. Once you have a possible hit, a fingerprint expert can validate the search of that print against that candidate and they can declare a 100 per cent hit,” he added.