Technology and Communication
CJA 304
November 28, 2013
Technology and Communication Technology has affected all aspects of life in both positive and negative, the criminal justice system is no exception. There are various ways that technology has become incorporated in every criminal justice department. With the wonders of science technology plays a major part of the criminal justice system. Technology today help officers solve cases and help officers put the rightfully convicted criminals behind bars. The technology advancement enhanced the effectiveness of communication. For example e-mail, some individuals will argue that is has replaced traditional face-to-face communication and lowering the effectiveness. This is true to a certain extent, but the convenience of e-mail has a fast and effective way to communicate and helps when needing to reflect upon things. In this day and age technology is on the rise, law enforcement agencies use a database such as Automated Fingerprint Identification System or AFIS for shot, this system allows law enforcement agencies to collect finger prints and place all fingerprints on a computer system. All state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies use finger print analyses as a tool in court. If a finger print is found on a piece of evidence, officers are able to run that print in AFIS and could possibly find a “hit”. Finding a hit could be finding a suspect to piece the case. The AFIS technology is one of the top class tools used in criminal cases today. With just about every crime will have officers looking for finger prints and process any finding of a possible print. With the high demand of finger printing officers are now carrying finger print kits in their units. Though the down side of finger printing is not every person is in the system and in order for AFIS to work, the print has to be in the system. If there is no match in the system, the officer working on the case will themselves running into a bump in the road and will slow down the investigation. There is also another database scan called Live Scan. Live scan is a tool to digitally place finger prints in a computer database and assist other officers worldwide with tracking a suspect or victim. This data base has been great with assisting officers solve many crimes. Live scan is used nationwide on a state, local, and federal level. Even the British government recognizes this database thus allowing the United States to link with their government for some international assistance. Like every system Live Scan is imperfect and has some flaws. Just like the AFIS, Live Scan can only work if there is a finger print available to download into the database. The other down fall is that the database is not found all over the world and this means that foreign criminals may be harder to find prints on. With terrorist in a constant attack trying to harm American interest, this database will only help it is able to download a prints law enforcement find from an unknown individual. When the print is found it is then kept on file in case any other agency find a match in the database. With these technologies around criminals are being more cautious when committing a crime and try to avoid leaving any finger prints to trace. The most common databases used in law enforcement is Think Stream and National Crime Information Center (NCIC). Think Stream provides information on individuals that have been involved in traffic
