More than 170 criminals have been identified from fingerprints left at crime scenes in Jamaica since the introduction of the Automatic Fingerprint Information System (AFIS) in October, according to Deputy Commissioner of Police Mark Shields.

The system currently has a database with 300,000 fingerprints from which to identify criminals, Shields revealed in a guest address to the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce’s Youth Leadership Training Programme graduation ceremony in downtown Kingston last Thursday.

A total of 55 persons, including 10 members of the police force, graduated from the six-week programme conducted by the University College of the Caribbean.

Shields said it had been a good year for the police in acquiring technology to assist in the fight against crime, as in addition to the fingerprinting equipment, the police force had received the Integrated Ballistic Information System which matches firearms to shells and bullets found at crime scenes or in persons who had been shot.

However, he is hoping for DNA identifying equipment to further aid the crime-fighting process.

“I am hoping that next year, the Government, whichever government it may be, will support a national DNA database as well, so that when a person is charged with a criminal offence, we not only take their fingerprints and photographs as we do at the moment, but we also take a DNA swab as well, because throughout the world, it is shown that that can clear up far more crimes,” Shields said.

Shields said DNA evidence was not only used to clear up sex crimes, but all other criminal activities as well.

He also stressed the importance of the technology for determining the innocence of persons wrongly accused of crimes.

“It excludes persons who are innocent who are arrested, and I think it is important to find those who are guilty as it is to find those who are innocent and release them as soon as possible.

Shields warned however, that all the technology and best detectives in the world will not solve Jamaica’s crime problem.

“We recognise that it is not just a policing problem; the only way we are ever going to solve this problem is to work as partners in reducing crime and violence,” he stressed.

He said it was a tragedy that a large proportion of Jamaica’s population felt that the police could not be trusted.

“The reality is that most of the men and women in the force are doing one of the most difficult and dangerous policing jobs in the world, and they are doing a really good job. Unfortunately, it’s the minority that is ruining it for the others,” he noted.

He said similarly it was unfair to label all inner-city residents as bad people.

“You can’t write off a whole community in the same way you can’t write off a whole police force as well,” he said.