22/5/03
In the forensic fight against crime, one in three offenders in Western Australia is being caught using the latest technology in fingerprint analysis.
Releasing the figures today, Police Minister Michelle Roberts said the Forensic Fingerprint Bureau at the WA Police Service was having an impressive strike rate in solving crime throughout the State.
"Drugs, sexual assaults, murder and links to outlaw motorcycle gangs are some of the areas where fingerprint analysis is playing a major role in solving crime in recent months," Mrs Roberts said.
Using the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS), police officers can store fingerprints gathered at a crime scene on a database. By performing a search of the NAFIS database, it will then detect links and 'hits' with other recorded crime scenes.
In a five-month period between January and May this year, the bureau recorded a total of 2,580 fingerprints from crime scenes with 811 hits - creating an average strike rate of about one in three.
"These are outstanding results which assist police in solving crime quickly and efficiently without sapping enormous amounts of police resources," the Minister said.
"To successfully target modern-day crime, our police must have these technological weapons to be smarter and faster than their adversaries."
Mrs Roberts said the State Government had boosted the Police budget by more than $90million over the last three years with an emphasis on providing new technology.
Some of the strike rates in the key police regions include:
Mrs Roberts said police also used the NAFIS system to identify the body of Darylyn Ugle, which was found in bush near Mundaring last month.
"It was an extremely difficult task for the Fingerprint Bureau, but over a two-day period, the officers used a range of image enhancement techniques to score a fingerprint match which identified the body," she said.
Minister's office: 9213 6600
