AUTOMATED RECORDS MANAGEMENT — South Hilo Patrol Officer Greg Silva, left, demonstrates how to fingerprint a suspect directly into the computer. Shirley Labasan of the Records and Identification Section prepares to process a photo lineup.
‘Green Box’ automates fingerprinting, photographing suspects
The Hawaii County Police Department has been piloting a new computer system that can photograph and fingerprint a suspect electronically and find out in a matter of hours whether the arrestee is wanted anywhere else in the United States.
The Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center (HCJDC) chose Hawaii County as the first to pilot the new system, which integrates the functions of “Livescan,” a computerized fingerprinting system, and “Crime Capture,” an electronic mug shot system, with the integrated information system.
Liane Moriyama, administrator of the HCJDC, a division of the State Attorney General’s Office, said her office chose the Hawaii County Police Department (HCPD) to pilot the system for two reasons.
“First, we had a commitment from the police chief on down to the officer in the street,” she said. “Second, the department has a really efficient Records and Identification Section.”
Using the new system, a police officer in Hilo or Kona can electronically photograph and fingerprint a suspect directly into the department’s computer system without the use of perishable film or messy ink.
A computer program dubbed the “Green Box” then assembles the information into formats that can be read by the State’s Offender-Based Transaction Statistics/Computerized Criminal History (OBTS/CCH) and Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS).
Once HCJDC gets the information from the Big Island, it can query the Federal Bureau of Investigation electronically and find out whether the suspect is wanted elsewhere. The FBI will respond to the query within two hours — a process that used to take up to two months when fingerprints were transmitted manually.
For police officers, the greatest benefit is the time it saves in booking and mugging a suspect and filling out the paperwork. The process, which used to take about 60 minutes, has been shortened to 20 minutes.
For the Records and Identification Section, the biggest savings is in the time it takes to present a photo lineup, according to Lieutenant Edwin Tanaka, head of the section. In a photo lineup, several photos are presented to a witness to see if he can identify a suspect.
“What used to take one hour now takes about 10 minutes,” Tanaka said.
The Green Box takes the information typed into the computer, the fingerprints and the mug shots and sends that packet electronically to HCJDC in Honolulu.Once the suspect is identified in the state system, the fingerprint files can then be sent electronically to the FBI, which can electronically compare a suspect’s fingerprints with the more than 38 million prints it stores in its computers.
Currently, the department uses the Green Box software at 13 booking sites, plus one more in its Records and Identification Section.
Only the South Hilo and Kona police districts, however, have the capability now of using the Livescan fingerprinting and Crime Capture mug shot systems.
The other booking sites continue to take Polaroid mug shots and to ink and role fingerprints of suspects. The prints are later scanned into the computer system and the mug photo filed.
However, booking officers throughout the county no longer have to type out fingerprint cards. They simply print a card from the Green Box and then ink and roll.
They now prepare their reports by making data entry into the Green Box and then printing out the reports. The Green Box automatically generates an identifying tracking number and automatically transfers to it all data needed for the statewide OBTS/CCH.
The pilot project cost a total of about $490,000 from various funding sources, according to the HCJDC’S Moriyama.
She said that through the National Governor’s Association, the state has received another $1 million, which will be used to expand the system to more rural police districts on the Big Island and start similar projects for the Kauai County Police Department and the Honolulu Sheriff’s Office.
Moriyama said the state has 18 to 24 months to implement this part of the project.
“After that,” she said, “we hope to find additional funding to expand the system to the remaining counties.”