NEW JUVENILE-FINGERPRINTING LAW ALREADY USED LIMITEDLY IN CAPE

When Senate Bill 180 takes effect later this month, law enforcement officials will be required to fingerprint juvenile offenders who have committed felony offenses or aggravated misdemeanors.

In much of Missouri, officials are dealing with the concept of fingerprinting juveniles for the first time, but that is not the case in Cape Girardeau.

"A couple of years ago, (Cape Girardeau police officer) Roger Fields suggested that we fingerprint runaways so that we had a picture and fingerprints on file to identify them," said Donna Heisserer, a juvenile court officer. "So we took it to the judge and he signed an order allowing us to do just that.

"The turnover at the police department is so great that by having pictures and fingerprints of kids who have run away, officers who are unfamiliar with the juveniles have a tool to more readily identify them," she said.

Missouri statute 122.01 forbids the fingerprinting of any child under the age of 17 unless ordered by the court.

During the 1993 legislative session, the Missouri General Assembly passed Senate Bill 180, also known as the Omnibus Crime Bill. The bill allows the taking of fingerprints for juveniles ages 14 to 17 who have been arrested for felonies and serious or aggravated misdemeanors.

The prints will then be turned over to the FBI, which will enter them into its Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS) to use as a comparison for prints taken at crime scenes.

Jay Wood, project director of the Missouri Juvenile Justice Association, said that the specifics dealing with the implementation of the bill within jurisdictions are still being ironed out.

"A lot of departments don't necessarily want to fingerprint juveniles for felonies or serious misdemeanors because they don't fingerprint adults for similar offenses," Wood said. "In fact, there's probably going to be some question of how an aggravated misdemeanor should be defined."

Wood said that people within his agency and the Missouri Department of Public Safety are currently working to iron out the details before the law takes effect Aug. 28.

"The Department of Public Safety is now concerned with the possibility of juveniles entering adult booking or jail facilities and the department's ability to maintain sight and sound barriers between adult prisoners and juveniles," Wood said. "In the end, the policies and decisions that come out of this will be largely based on the individual jurisdictions and the law enforcement departments within those jurisdictions."

However, Wood said that the Missouri Highway Patrol is currently developing standardized forms to use for juvenile fingerprints.

After a juvenile is fingerprinted, half of the card is to be clearly marked "juvenile card" and submitted to a central repository such as Highway Patrol troop headquarters or the state headquarters in Jefferson City.

The only identifier on the cards sent to the state will be a case or subject number and the court of jurisdiction; no names will appear on the cards.

A duplicate card will contain the juvenile's identification and duplicate case number, and be stored by the juvenile court of jurisdiction. In Cape Girardeau, the cards will be stored at the Juvenile Detention Center, 325 Merriwether.

In Cape Girardeau, Police Chief Howard Boyd Jr. said that he hopes juveniles will be fingerprinted at the Juvenile Detention Center.

"We cannot mix juvenile and adult offenders," said Boyd. "It would be a lot easier for us to be able to take juvenile offenders straight to the detention center and avoid possible contact with adult offenders at the police station."

Currently, officers who take juveniles into custody on suspicion of breaking a law are transported directly to the juvenile center. If an officer wants to interview a juvenile, he must have a parent and a juvenile officer present during the questioning.

Heisserer said that just being in the police department affects juveniles.

"They know we're serious once we haul them down to the police station," said Heisserer. "I've taken two over there myself.

"The first one thought it was a joke until we walked through the door of the police station," she said. "They see the pictures of the missing children hanging on the wall of the booking room and it really gets to them."

Circuit Judge A.J. Seier, the juvenile judge for the circuit, said that current tactics used with juveniles are a protective measure for their own good.

"This is just another way of identifying them as they grow older," Seier said. "The cops said it would be a useful tool in their work, so I said okay."

Boyd believes that the new statute will aid law enforcement in finding the answers to some crimes.

"The more investigative tools we have to solve major crimes, the better off we are," Boyd said. "When we are able to lift a good print from a crime scene, the FBI's AFIS will compare it to every print on file in a matter of seconds.

"This will just give it a bigger pool to compare to," he said.

"We're working to set up a meeting between our department and local law enforcement officials," Heisserer said. "I think this will be helpful once the bugs are ironed out."