Jail Inmates’ Mugs Link to State Police

CREST HAVEN — Any day, an average 300 inmates reside at the Cape May County Correctional Facility.
Their crimes may range from contempt of court to murder, rape or armed robbery.
Last year, 3,143 inmates, and this year, 2,609 through September, processed at the jail had something common, all had a front face “mug shot” snapped and Livescan taken of their fingerprints when they were admitted.
Now, with a $4,255 federal grant, those mug shots will be available to the N.J. State Police and to the nation’s law enforcement agencies.
On Nov. 12, freeholders approved a resolution to accept the National Criminal History Improvement grant.
Warden Richard Harron said Monday that recently, “With homeland security, State Police realized that corrections is an ample resource for them.”
On Oct. 27, Harron informed the state Attorney General’s office that the third phase of the Mug Photo Capture System was done and he paid Dynamic Imaging Systems, Inc. of Marlton to install the Picturelink to State Police system. The county was reimbursed for the expense.
In March, the state Attorney General notified Harron that the county had been awarded additional funds under the federal National Criminal History Improvement grant program.
The final of three phases in the program was the interface of each county jail mug photo system with the State Police central repository of images.
All mug photos taken at the county jail will be electronically forwarded to the state police for inclusion in the statewide system.
Criminal Justice agencies around the country will then have access to the state’s repository of images on National Crime Information Center terminals.
New Jersey will be one of the first, if not the only state to have a statewide county jail mug photo system, according to Kelly Ottobre, grants coordinator with the Office of the Attorney General Anne Milgram.
Completion of the system “will improve the defendant documentation and identification with a digital photo record that will be stored for every individual committed to the county jail,” Ottobre wrote.
“Those photos will become a part of the inmate’s record, as well as a part of the statewide central mug photo repository.
“The photo will aid in the positive identification of fugitives, gang members, John Does and suspected terrorists,” Ottobre wrote.
“County jail photos may be the only photos of an individual on record, and could be the only means of identifying a suspect,” she added.
“Submittal of county jail mug photos to the State Police statewide central repository provides access to those photos for all criminal justice agencies throughout the county,” she concluded.
Harron said the Livescan fingerprint system has helped solve “hundreds or thousands of crimes.” Among those were rape cases, burglaries and others. The system is much quicker than the former human factor that compared fingerprints, he said.
“The iris is next,” said Harron, president of the New Jersey Wardens Association.
That is a reference to detection of the eye’s iris. Systems are on the market that enables detection of one’s iris as they pass through a metal detector, he said.
Every iris is unique, as are fingerprints, and readily identify a person.
Contact Campbell at (609) 886-8600 Ext 28 or at: al.c@cmcherald.com