Fingerprint fear
Published:Tuesday | August 3, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Livern Barrett, Gleaner Writer
Concerns are being raised in the legal fraternity about the police being allowed to preserve the thousands of fingerprints they reportedly obtained from detainees during the recent state of emergency.
This provision was inserted into the new Emergency Powers Regulations, which were gazetted on June 22, shortly after the state of emergency was extended for 30 days and expanded to St Catherine.
Under Section 31, Subsection (4) of the June 22 regulations: "Any person detained under paragraph (1) shall be deemed to be in lawful custody and may be detained in any prison or in any lock-up or in any other place authorised generally or specifically by the minister; and an authorised person may, during such detention, take photographs, description measurement and fingerprints of any person so detained and any information so obtained may, after the release of such person, be preserved."
This clause, which was not in the first set of regulations gazetted on May 26, is in stark contrast to what the law requires when there is no state of emergency.
Destroy after acquittal
Under the Fingerprint Act, only a judge can order that an accused person provide the police with fingerprints. In addition, the police are required to destroy the fingerprints within three months after the accused is acquitted of an offence.
Attorney-at-law Bert Samuels claimed that the "troubling" new provision was "sneaked" into the second set of emergency regulations and warned that these fingerprints were "dangerous in the possession of the police".
Pointing out that fingerprints, like DNA, are powerful evidence, Samuels questioned the need for the clause.
"What interest does the State have in the fingerprints of a person who has not been found guilty of any offence and who has not been charged for any offence?" he asked.
"We have had the experience where a police officer admitted to fabricating a witness to secure a conviction against a citizen," he said in reference to convicted former Detective Constable Carey Lyn-Sue.
In 2008, Lyn-Sue confessed, under oath, that he had fabricated a statement in a case against Jason James.
Samuels added: "Therefore, it is not far-fetched that the State, being in possession of my fingerprints, could transfer them and impose them on a crime scene and then make a case against me."
Calls and text messages left on the telephone for Dwight Nelson, minister of national security, were not returned up to press time.
When contacted, acting Deputy Commissioner of Police Glenmore Hinds declined to comment and would not confirm whether any detainee had been fingerprinted.
Large groups fingerprinted
However, several persons interviewed by The Gleaner reported that they were fingerprinted and photographed while they were in detention.
In addition, the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights (IJCHR) said it had information that large groups of young men from several inner-city communities are being detained, fingerprinted and photographed.
Head of the IJCHR, Arlene Harrison-Henry, said her under-standing was that this was being done to create a national database of names and fingerprints.
"It seems highly irregular to have these people's fingerprints on a database without them having committed a crime, being reason-ably suspected of committing a crime, about to commit a crime, or in anyway wanted by the police," Harrison-Henry said.
"It is troubling. It is disturbing that we want to build a profile of persons who come from certain communities," she added.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding told Parliament last month that 4,181 people were detained under the state of emergency up to July 14.
The state of emergency was first imposed on May 23 and expired on July 22 after Parliament failed to approve a 30-day extension sought by the Government.
It has been widely credited with the recent reduction in major crimes, but opponents say the circumstances no longer exist to justify a state of emergency.