Fingerprinting is available at the Police Annex during normal business hours. Individuals requiring fingerprints must provide the fingerprint card and present two forms of identification, one of which must include a photograph and date of birth.
A $5.00 fee in the form of cash, money order or check made payable to the County of Fairfax is required.
Fingerprint identification has been used as a positive means of identification in the United States for just over 100 years. Fingerprints are all unique. No two individuals, in fact, no two fingers are known to bear the same fingerprints. Secondly, fingerprints are permanent and remain the same throughout life.
Latent images are created by sweat, oils, or other substances the fingers touch. An image may or may not be located, depending on environmental issues and the surface handled by the individual.
These latent prints are of interest to the police department when they are left at the scene of a crime. Since the prints are not visible to the eye, Crime Scene Detectives use powder and/or chemicals to recover the latent prints.
Latent fingerprints that are recovered from a crime scene are entered by the Fingerprint Specialists in the NOVARIS unit. Unlike popular television shows that depict fingerprint computers producing a “match”, the NOVARIS computer takes the information entered and reduces the list of suspects from 700,000 to about 30. These suspects are individually compared side-by-side by trained examiners. The work is often arduous and requires several years of training and experience to develop this expertise.
In 2004, computer or manual comparison identified approximately 758 latent fingerprint images from crime scenes. Approximately 7,224 arrestees were identified as having prior criminal histories through the assistance of the NOVARIS AFIS computer system.
Individuals arrested for felony and most misdemeanor offenses are fingerprinted by the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office. A “LiveScan” machine captures digital images of each finger and stores the individual’s prints. Those fingerprints are entered into a computerized database known as the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, (AFIS). This system currently stores nearly 700,000 fingerprint cards of arrested individuals and over 84,000 latent fingerprint images. Once the fingerprints are entered into the AFIS, the arresting agency can determine whether the individual has a criminal history and whether his fingerprints were recovered from the scene of any unsolved crimes.
