WillyBWright
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- Dec 29, 2003
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Get a ticket, give a fingerprint<br />Green Bay program targets identity theft<br />Associated Press<br />Posted: Jan. 8, 2005<br />Green Bay - A new police policy to fingerprint traffic and ordinance violators is expected to prevent about a half-dozen people a year from being wrongly jailed, an official said Friday.<br /> <br />"There's an increasing use of people using false identification, fraudulent identification and stealing other people's identity and using it later on, and these people are becoming victims," said Capt. Greg Urban, public information officer for the Green Bay Police Department.<br /><br />Green Bay officers are carrying portable ink pads to take one print from the index finger of those cited for traffic or ordinance violations and put the print on a copy of the ticket.<br /><br />The new policy, which took effect Dec. 30, is described as voluntary.<br /><br />Urban said the department was already bringing in people for fingerprinting if they couldn't show valid photo identification or driver's licenses or if officers had reason to doubt their identity.<br /><br />The additional fingerprinting has been questioned by Christopher Ahmuty, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.<br /><br />"It's unfortunate ID theft goes on, but if they stop thousands of people each year that are innocent except for tailgating or jaywalking, to treat them as if they are committing identity theft without any particularized suspicion, it doesn't make a lot of sense in terms of resources or fairness," he said.<br /><br />Urban said the department checked with the state attorney general's office, the Brown County District Attorney and the city attorney before implementing the policy.<br /><br />"There's nothing in the state statutes or local laws saying we can't do this," he said. "Community reaction is probably going to dictate how this thing all falls out."<br /><br />Urban said the fingerprints will not be put into any database of criminal suspects, will not be used in unrelated investigations and will remain on file with the citation. He said giving up fingerprints is voluntary according to state law, and no violators will be coerced into doing so.<br /><br />"This doesn't have anything to do with the Patriot Act," he said. "There's no Big Brother thing; there's no secret database."<br /><br />Green Bay police are trying to prevent situations like one Urban came across as a shift commander: A man cited for disorderly conduct in a bar fight gave his friend's name and date of birth to police. When the citation wasn't paid and the man failed to show up for court, his friend was arrested.<br /><br />"It's a lot of work and it's a lot of headaches for the person that becomes the victim here," he said. "Does five or six times a year justify this policy? I guess you ask yourself: 'What if it was me?' "<br /><br />The Milwaukee Police Department encourages its officers to get fingerprints from ordinance violators and is looking into purchasing portable fingerprint scanning equipment connected to the state's fingerprint database, spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said.<br /><br />"We're trying to figure out where the money could come from for this," she said.<br /><br />Jeff Hardel, deputy chief of the Wausau Police Department, said his agency doesn't have that type of policy but added, "I absolutely love the idea."<br /><br />"Anything that law enforcement, the managers in law enforcement, can do to make the job for our officers easier we should do," he said.<br /><br />Eau Claire Police Department Lt. Karl Fisher said similar cases have occurred in his city, where people receive notices for tickets and inform police they've never even been to the area. His department doesn't have a fingerprint policy like Green Bay's, but he said he understands the reasons behind it with the rise of convincing-looking fake IDs.<br /><br />"A driver's license used to be pretty good, but it doesn't mean that much anymore," he said.<br /><br /> As a citizen of this fine state, I choose to boycott these cities. If they want tourist money for their local economies, they'll have to get it from somebody else! 
<br /><br /> I'm not in the habbit of getting tickets, but this policy is absolutely WRONG! The potential of misuse is HUGE! Voluntary??? Yeah, Right! What person that's pulled over isn't going to feel intimidated to comply?
<br /><br /> I'm not in the habbit of getting tickets, but this policy is absolutely WRONG! The potential of misuse is HUGE! Voluntary??? Yeah, Right! What person that's pulled over isn't going to feel intimidated to comply?