The New Jersey Police Chief Magazine | Summer 2024
Why Law Enforcement Agencies in New Jersey Should Capture Complete Palm Prints
The National Palm Print System ( NPPS ) facilitates the storage of known palm prints and the search of latent palm prints left at crime scenes . Currently , the NPPS repository maintains tens of millions of unique palm print identities and individual palm prints tied to those identities , all of which are available for investigative leads .
Palm prints are a trusted , valuable tool that law enforcement can use to identify suspects . NPPS estimates that 30 percent of latent prints found at crime scenes come from the palm . The palm , which is a larger hand area than fingertips , has more characteristics for Latent Examiners to compare and match than fingerprints . While fingerprints usually have about 150 definable characteristics for identification , a palm print can have about 1,500 . Nearly all states , some territories , and the District of Columbia submit palm print images to NPPS . The value of palm prints is evident from the numerous success stories from using them that participating agencies report .
Unfortunately , NPPS cannot enroll and process all the palm prints that agencies submit . A significant number of states have enrollment success rates under 80 percent due to low quality or incomplete images , and some have success rates under 50 percent . New Jersey has a palm print enrollment rate of 90.75 percent over the last six months .
Palm prints that fail enrollment can never be searched against latent records in the Unsolved Latent File ( ULF ). This can result in a failure to identify potential suspects , which may cause crimes to go unsolved .
The main factor to improve palm print enrollment rates The most common reason for palm print enrollment failure is incomplete image capture . A complete , usable set of palm print images includes the whole inner surface of the hand , including the insides of the fingers . The set of palm prints should capture the impression of the center of the hand — which people commonly call the palm — plus the inside surface of the fingers out to the last joint . That last joint , which is called the distal area , features the fingerprints . Capturing the fingerprints along with the rest of the palm results in a complete set of print images that maximizes the chances of successful identification .
A complete palm print includes the wrist bracelet to the distal areas and all parts between .
The distal images are important for ensuring the correctness of the palm print and to ensure enrollment . This is because criminal history records in NGI are based on fingerprint identification , and the distal part of the fingers contains the fingerprints . If a palm print submission correctly includes the distal images , the system can check the fingerprints against the palm areas , ensuring they are part of the same hand . Without the distal images , the system cannot perform this check .
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