| Deputy Tasha Barnett and Jail Sgt. Dusty Butler show the benefits of the new fingerprint machine. |
The Emery County Sheriff’s Office recently purchased a new state of the art fingerprinting machine. This new machine eliminates the ink and mess of traditional fingerprinting. The machine was purhased with grant money from Homeland Security. Lt. Bill Downard said the new machine will be a real asset. After a set of prints are taken, they can be submitted immediately to the state’s data base and compared against other prints for matches. This lets the sheriff’s office know if the inmate is wanted somewhere else and aids in making a positive identification on the prisoner. Just recently a man picked up in Huntington wouldn’t give his correct name and the data base matched him and a positive identification was made.He came back as a wanted person from Carbon County.
The prints can also be used to make a positive identification of dead bodies. The side of the hand prints are also useful for identifying a person from written material.
The new machine will also do full hand print screening. These types of prints are used for identification in major case crimes. Photos of the inmates can also be linked to the prints so all the information on an inmate is accessible at the same time.
The Sheriff’s Office said they have been in need of this machine for a long time and they are among the last in the state to get the new equipment.