A grant program designed to improve the accuracy and completeness of the state’s criminal records repository will pay for 77 new devices that Ohio courts will use to capture fingerprints of defendants for submission to the database. One of the recipients is the Marion County Common Pleas Court Family Division.
“Fingerprints are a critical piece of the puzzle in verifying someone’s identity and checking their criminal history,” said the Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said. “These grant funds will be invested in the courts to further modernize the record-keeping system by building in a more secure process for collecting fingerprints. This will allow law enforcement, employers, and even ordinary Ohioans to have more confidence in the system.”
Under Ohio law, the Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) is required to maintain the state’s Computerized Criminal History (CCH), a database of fingerprints and criminal history records based on information provided by more than 200 courts across the state as their cases are resolved.
The information is used for criminal investigations, prosecutions, sentencing decisions, prison supervision and release, and background checks for individuals applying for a license or purchasing a gun, and for individuals who work with children, the elderly in Ohio, or people with disabilities.
The new devices, called LiveScan devices, are being delivered to courts in 42 counties. They will help fill gaps in the fingerprinting of suspects and automate the submission of those fingerprints to the CCH.
The devices, which cost $898,450, were purchased through a grant from the National Criminal History Improvement Program, which is administered by the attorney general’s office. It is the latest federal grant that Yost’s office has applied for and received in recent years to modernize various aspects of the state’s criminal history maintenance and reporting processes.
This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Marion County Common Pleas Court Gets New Fingerprint Scanner Device
