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Will the Tempe Police destroy these fingerprints when the kids
turn 18 as required by Arizona law? We doubt it in the police state of Tempe!
October 28, 2007 - 10:24PM Tempe police are undertaking a task that Scottsdale officers have done for years and Mesa cops don’t want to try — fingerprinting juvenile suspects. The new policy in Tempe, which applies only to felony and violent crime suspects, began in August after officials found that Maricopa County’s juvenile detention facilities weren’t fingerprinting suspects. “Clearly (the juveniles have) shown that they’re involved in some criminal activity and we need to know who they are, just like we do adults,” said Tempe police Sgt. Mike Horn. Maricopa County’s juvenile jails don’t fingerprint or photograph juveniles taken there, said J.W. Brown, Maricopa County Superior Court spokeswoman. But some law enforcement agencies are finding they want the prints for their records and to help solve other crimes. Scottsdale police spokesman Sgt. Mark Clark said his agency has been booking juveniles for years. But because of strict state laws, the process isn’t easy. State law dictates that juvenile prisoners must not be able to see or hear any adults being held in jail, so officers must make sure to keep them away from everyone else. “It crimps the operations of the jail if you can’t bring adults in there,” Clark said. “It puts the whole process on hold.” In Scottsdale, officers must place all their adult prisoners in cells and bring juveniles into a separate area. For that reason, Mesa police said they’d be unable to fingerprint juveniles. They would simply have nowhere to bring them, said Mesa police detective Steve Berry. Tempe police have overcome this obstacle by bringing the young prisoners into the police station’s main lobby and either fingerprinting them there or upstairs. They are never taken into the jail, Horn said. And it’s only suspects for felonies or violent crimes who may be fingerprinted. Daniel Pochoda, legal director of American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, said, among other things, he hopes the police department is automatically purging the fingerprints of any juveniles not charged or found not guilty. “I hope (the fingerprints) don’t find their way into general files that can be used in other areas,” he added. Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, an Arizona State University professor in social work and an expert in juvenile criminal justice issues, echoed similar concerns. “It makes sense all the way around, if they want to have their own records,” Roe-Sepowitz said. “(But) I think all that could change very quickly if they started distributing the material of an uncharged individual.” Still, she said the concept is a “fabulous” idea as long as officers adhere to the state law. She said, “If they find people falling through the cracks, it’s certainly a public safety risk.” |