CRIMINAL IDENTIFICATION PROCEDURES

Criminal Identification Procedures in the 21st Century

Criminal Identification Procedures in the 21st Century

Introduction

Many people do nothing about the future. After all, the future will occur momentarily, whether they plan for it, benefit from it, or are surprised by it. People's expectations about the future, however, often run to extremes. For example, the archetypal 1950s' concept of the year 2000 consisted of flying machines in every garage and robots as servants. Yet, today's advances in the medical and computer fields have transcended anything imagined a few decades ago. (David 2001)Because of the reactive nature inherent in the daily workings of their profession, law enforcement officials also tend not to overly concern themselves about the future. After all, most law enforcement efforts, as well as training, focus on responding to existing threats to the public's safety. (Bulter, 2000, 118) Even those law enforcement professionals concerned about the future and futures research usually concentrates on the next budget year, rather than on a five or ten year strategic plan for their agencies.

Criminal Identification Procedures in the 21st Century

The following are some of the technologies being used in order to improve the criminal identification procedures in the Twenty-First Century: Information Technology In many ways, the technological revolution that is most familiar to us is the information revolution. New capabilities pose new challenges to the criminal justice system. Some of those challenges are familiar to us, such as how to balance privacy concerns with the need to conduct criminal investigations, yet these challenges are magnified by the sheer reach of the new information technology. (David, 2001, 120)

DNA Technology

Another powerful new technology is DNA. DNA allows us to match a biological sample to an individual at a mathematical level that approaches absolute certainty. It was introduced for the first time in court in the case of Florida v. Tommy Lee Andrews. Since January of 1989 the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) has allowed casework from the state forensic labs. Within the next three to five years, with National Institute of Justice NIJ funding, DNA science will advance to the point where portable DNA labs can be taken to crime scenes and multiple samples can be tested simultaneously, with virtually immediate results, at relatively low cost.

DNA has been one of the most effective means of overturning a sentence for a person who was wrongly sentenced. It is so effective because it has such a diminutive allowance for error. It is very black and white, guilty or not guilty. Fortunately for those who have been sentenced in error, DNA has become a truly prevalent method over the past 6 years. (David, 2001, 120)

Biometric Fingerprint Authentication Technology

This technology provides three-dimensional readings of the human fingerprint that captures the pattern of the finger, its ridges and valleys, and extracts the unique information. This technology provides more information than traditional fingerprint recognition systems. Not only is this technology accurate and comprehensive, but it is also fast. Biometric Fingerprint Authentication Technology provides real-time ID, providing authentic, (David, 2001, 120) reliable ...