The Miami Police had all the necessary information about Uncle Bob, specifically his name, birth date, height, and weight. Moreover, they knew the dates of his offenses, trial, and punishment, although he had never been out of California until that incident. The police of Miami had the information mentioned above due to the system of fingerprints, which has remained almost unchangeable for a hundred years. Nowadays the fingerprint proof is collected and saved as data; the fingerprints are taken mostly by two prevailing practices: “capacitance scanning and optical scanning” (Foster, 2013, p. 124). These methods require immensely divergent technologies though the result in both cases is obtaining an image of a fingerprint. Despite the fact that the police officers are able to use different methods of obtaining fingerprints, they follow the standard initial procedure in either situation. The process usually starts with a police officer entering and saving essential information about the suspect, such as the name and the place of birth.
A primary component of biometrics, “which is a science of automatically identifying people based upon physiological characteristics such as fingerprints, facial structure, thermal image, gait, speech and handwriting” (Foster, 2013, p. 127) is the automatic collection of fingerprints and logging them into a database of already saved fingerprints. The criminal justice information systems are one of the most usable among the police officers, and it contains all data about the offender, which had been used and obtained by the criminal justice system. For instance, the criminal justice information system include the testimonies from trials, the information about traffic accidents such as driver’s plates and licenses and even the data obtained confidentially; thus making the system different from the police records. On the other hand, when an officer directs to the police records, the data gathered there consists entirely of the information obtained by the police.
State and local police agencies had processed information within four steps: “the paperwork stage, personal computer stage, developing an internal network and, finally, the full integration with the entire criminal justice system. In the final stage, the fully automated agency record management system is an integral part of a regional, state, and national criminal justice information system” (Foster, 2013, p. 130). So, based on this, I can surely say that if Uncle Bob was registered as an offender in California, the records of him are available to the police officers in Miami. Moreover, if Uncle Bob already has been on trial, the judge has imposed a punishment, and Uncle Bob was almost immediately arrested in Miami, I suppose that he violated his conditions of probation by entering another state.
There is a method of sharing information that is prevalent, if not worldwide, it is based on implementing information sharing and grants access to the information for others to explore and obtain. However, the data can be preserved in several formats to a choice of an organization. For this reason, the Law Enforcement Information Sharing Program Exchange Specification (LEXS) was established in order to interpret the data obtained from individual law enforcement systems into a widely used configuration. Nowadays, there are several origins of shared data: CJIS, which is sort for Criminal Justice Information Services, at present supplies with data nearly one million consumers in more than 17,000 systems. “CJIS exchanges information with its partners through state-of-the-art technologies and statistical services that span the criminal justice community — from automated fingerprint systems to crime statistics; from secure communications to gun purchase background checks” (Law Enforcement, 2008, para. 3).
Here I will mention four systems that give access to information between local and federal agencies. Law Enforcement On-line is an organization of FBI that supply preserved methods of obtaining and distributing data with local law enforcement agencies by the means of one program. Law Enforcement On-line gives admission to certain security, internet and transportation systems such as the National Alert System, Virtual Command Center, and e-Guardian. National Crime Information Center, or NCIC, was established in 1967 and includes 21 files: “there are seven property files containing records of stolen articles, boats, guns, license plates, parts, securities, and vehicles. There are 14 person files, including Supervised Release; National Sex Offender Registry; Foreign Fugitive; Immigration Violator; Missing Person; Protection Order; Unidentified Person; Protective Interest; Gang; Known or Appropriately Suspected Terrorist; Wanted Person; Identity Theft; Violent Person; and National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Denied Transaction” (Law Enforcement, 2008, para. 5). Moreover, the system includes pictures that would provide help identifying offenders or missing items. To my opinion, that is the system that had the records of Uncle Bob.
IAFIS, which stands for Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System contains not only records of fingerprints, but also related criminal histories: “mug shots; scars and tattoo photos; physical characteristics like height, weight, and hair and eye color; and aliases” (Law Enforcement, 2008, para. 5). Uniform Crime Reporting Program contains data about felony statistics since 1930.
As a conclusion, I will repeat that, to my opinion, Uncle Bob has violated his trial period in California and tried to enter another state. Based on the information I provided above, it can be concluded that the police officers took his driver’s license due to speeding, looked his name in the National Crime Information Center and obtained all necessary records. On the other hand, the police officers could use his fingerprints to search for data in Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System.
References
Foster, R. (2013). Police Technology. Davenport, Iowa: Kaplan University.
Law Enforcement Information Sharing. (2008). Web.