British politician William Gladstone said,
“Justice delayed is justice denied.” That means that the
weeks-long turnaround time for processing some fingerprints at the
San Jose Police Department lab is unacceptable and must change.
British politician William Gladstone said, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” That means that the weeks-long turnaround time for processing some fingerprints at the San Jose Police Department lab is unacceptable and must change.
When a criminal leaves behind information that can help to make a positive identification, it behooves the authorities to do that as quickly as possible. They need to make sure criminals have little opportunity to repeat their crimes, to widen their path of destruction, to increase the number of victims.
Crimes are ranked, with bodily injury crimes receiving higher priority than property crimes, at the fingerprint processing lab. Burglaries and other property crimes are a major concern. If fingerprints are linked with an individual, the quicker an arrest is made the better.
A three- to six-week wait on burglary fingerprints suspect is not identified is simply not the kind of public safety response residents or businesses want or need. A criminal emboldened by a successful burglary is likely to commit more crimes and will possibly move on to ever more serious crimes.
In the case of burglaries, the likelihood of recovering stolen property drops dramatically the longer it takes to apprehend the perpetrator.
A couple of possible solutions to this problem occur to us:
• Partnering with other small towns that are dependent upon the San Jose Police Department and county financing a fingerprint processing lab at the county crime lab, thus avoiding the backlog at SJPD’s lab.
• Creating a fingerprint processing lab at the Morgan Hill or Gilroy police departments and offering the services to other small-town police departments in the region, thus offsetting the cost and justifying the expense such a lab would entail.
We’re sure there are other ways to address the issue. We urge City Council to put this matter on its agenda as quickly as possible to end this unacceptable delay in justice.
City leaders must find a way to dramatically reduce fingerprint processing time.
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