by Linda Straker
- In April 2013, Grenada received an Automated Fingerprint Identification System from the US Government costing US$250,000
- First-of-its-kind system was funded by Caribbean Basin Security Initiative
- Unclear if new equipment is an upgrade or replacement
In the coming months, police in Grenada will have access to equipment that will allow them to process fingerprints at crime scenes faster than they do now.
“A very key piece of equipment that we need, and now we may get it, I have the commitment that it will be purchased as an AFISes system, which is the automatic fingerprint identification system,” Don McKenzie, Commissioner of Police, said during a news conference on Monday.
At the time, he was answering questions from journalists about the need to improve resources in the police force. Under AFIS technology, the new computer equipment scans and digitises fingerprints, automatically creates a spatial geometry or map of the unique ridge patterns of the prints, and translates this spatial relationship into a binary code for the computer’s searching algorithm.
“AFISes are mostly used by governments for identification in elections, civil registers and law enforcement. In criminal investigations, the so-called latent fingerprints lifted from a crime scene are compared to the database records of known criminals and unknown fingerprints,” said a website which explained the use of that technology.
McKenzie said that the system will cost over US$420,000. “It will allow us to process fingerprints, especially at the scene of crimes; short of that, we have to manually go through that; somebody will have to go through a very long process that is still in short supply,” he said.
In April 2013, Grenada became the second of 13 Caribbean territories to receive an Automated Fingerprint Identification System from the US Government as part of efforts to assist in crime-solving in the region.
“Together, all these islands will be able to work to help each other solve crime,” said then US Ambassador to Barbados and the OECS Dr Larry Palmer. “The AFIS will enhance border security for the individual islands,” he said, explaining that it will make searching databases with fingerprints much easier and quicker.
The first-of-its-kind system for the region was funded by the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, and through Diplomatic Security Anti-Terrorism Assistance, the United States was providing AFIS to 13 Caribbean nations, including the entire Eastern Caribbean, at US$250,000 per country.
Ambassador Palmer said then that digitisation of Grenada’s and other Caricom nations’ paper fingerprint cards will raise Caribbean countries to the international law enforcement standard and ease coordination among law enforcement entities.
It is unclear if the new equipment is an upgrade to what was delivered in 2013 or a replacement to the existing machine.
