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Impact of the AFIS

etails, such as those tiny characteristics which make one fingerprint recognizably different from another. The minutiae-based AFIS system matches those details on the print with similar details which are found on prints contained in the computer files. The system is quite precise: "A thin beam of light scans each print and records the location of up to 100 minutiae. The computer then converts these data into numbers that can be stored on magnetic disks and retrieved for comparison with prints taken from the scene of a crime" (Elmer-De Witt, 1985, p. 96). AFIS are an example of a highly sophisticated form of technology. Not only do these systems note fingerprint minutiae such as ridge endings and bifurcations, but they also "record their relative position and orientation (Kurre, 1987, p. 15). Because of this, there is little difficulty in making a positive match.

When a crime has occurred, officers at the scene of the crime take fingerprints from various surfaces. The prints taken from the scene are called "latent" prints because they have not yet been identified. Sometimes only a portion of a print can be taken from the scene, which in the past often confounded police efforts at identification. However, the AFIS has shown great success in matching such "latent" prints to prints contained in the computer database files.

The files of the computer store are known as "tenprint" card data. This is the term which refers to the ten fingerprints which are made when someone is booked for a criminal charge. The computerized AFIS system "scans fingerprints from a tenprint fingerprint card, plots the characteristics of the ridges, loops, whorls and other fingerprint codes on a 'X'/'Y' internal grid and records these plots" (Titus, 1991, p. 50). Then, when a "latent" print has been taken from the scene of a crime, it is, hopefully, matched with one of the prints obtained from these "tenprint" cards, thus providing a source of ident...

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Impact of the AFIS. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 16:50, April 19, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1705049.html