3-10-2010 Florida:
The statement
"Florida's new fingerprint identification system is improving our rate of solving cold cases by 300 percent."
Gov. Charlie Crist, March 2, his State of the State address.
The ruling
Crist is talking about the Biometric Identification System, or BIS for short. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, BIS is more precise and has more capacity than previous systems.
Here's how it works: Law enforcement officials from across the state upload fingerprint and palm print information from crime scenes and from people they arrest. The computer then tries to match the two, looking for people in the system who may have committed unsolved crimes. The concept isn't new — the FDLE has been matching fingerprints electronically for years — but the state is now able to match palm prints for the first time. The new system also improves accuracy in fingerprint searches, said FDLE spokeswoman Kristen Chernosky.
The new statewide BIS system has been up and running since May 2009 and has paid great dividends, Chernosky said.
In fact, the FDLE spokeswoman said it was the state law enforcement agency that provided Crist's office the 300 percent figure he cited in his speech.
But the number isn't calculating what Crist said it was.
"There has been an approximately 300 percent increase in the number of fingerprint hits that have been provided to our local law enforcement agencies," Chernosky said. "That means there was some kind of match, but not necessarily the number of cases solved."
Put another way, the new system is increasing the number of fingerprint and palm print matches to aid local law enforcement, but it's unclear if those matches are leading to a similar increase in arrests. The FDLE hasn't tracked that number, Chernosky said.
That's an important distinction in assessing Crist's claim. He's right that the new BIS system is helping police and sheriff's deputies. But he's making it sound like the new technology is having a dramatic impact on the number of cases solved. In fact, fingerprint matches are up 300 percent. As a result, we rate Crist's claim Barely True. ..Source.. Aaron Sharockman, Times Staff Writer
March 10, 2010
Fingerprint matches increase, but not arrests as Crist claims
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1 comment:
If the snake in the Garden of Eden had a human head, it's face would have looked like Charlie Crist.
Crist, won his election to Governor of Florida on the backs of Sex Offenders. He despises them, and his policies show it.
However, due to these same policies, and the heroic truthful writing of responsible journalists exposing his Nazi style policies (Julia Tuttle Bridge), Crist will more than likely loose his election to the US Senate in 2010.
Thank you Gov. Crist for showing us how a politician can loose an election for catering to hate crimes, being prejudiced against a class of citizen, and not upholding the Florida as well as the U.S. Constitution.
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