Mind you though the fingerprinting itself makes sense and the police did it where I grew up in Ohio decades ago at the schools.

Are they really that tone deaf ?
I can not believe nobody in the police department thought of the image this projects. Lets teach your kids how they will be processed when we arrest them.

with a name and number tag on their chest for easy reference. See how we have this little board with lines on it behind them that records their height right on the picture?"

A little public service time from the officers would be a nice gesture. imho

8-)

will do SO MUCH to improve community trust and respect for a police force that doesn't deserve either.

problem now. They think this will improve it?

It is a stupid idea in Ferguson given the level of distrust. Are they claiming they aren't going to use them for database searches unrelated to missing children?

From the photo accompanying the story, identifying the product being used :

From the information site for the product:



http://www.ezchildid.com/

The article says the police post them in a database, but according to the entity which produces the product they are using, that can't happen because the software wipes out the data when the next child is processed. I suspect that is a product of bad journalism, or potentially police not understanding the system they are using.

If it was mandatory then yes... as it stands.... no.

I don't see anybody here expressing "outrage". It's more like bemoaning an almost unbelievably out of touch police force's vision of what the community will want. It's just sad is all.

I listened to Michele Martin on NPR today : On Tuesday from 10 a.m. to noon, KCUR will broadcast Beyond Ferguson: A Community Conversation moderated by NPR's Michele Martin.

http://kcur.org/post/kcur-air-ferguson-special-featuring-nprs-michel-martin

You will be horrified by how clueless and insensitive to the needs of the people of Ferguson the mayor and others are. It is 2 hours long but well worth the listen.

database. Wow, the bad PR just keeps coming and coming. This is so DUH!

Then a little time goes by and it becomes "strongly recommended" that you fingerprint your child.

Next, it moves to being strongly recommended and your deemed ineligible to get a job with the city, partake in any government programs or enroll your child in public schools if you don't have your child fingerprinted. But it's still sort of voluntary.

Then they aren't asking anymore, and it is mandatory, and fines are levied for parents who don't fingerprint their child. If the fine goes unpaid, an arrest warrant is issued.

Just watch.

I grew up in Southern California. I remember going through this in pre-school. (Late 70s) -- The same reason was given, if a kid was missing, then the police would have fingerprints on file.

In a community that is suspicious of the police and criminalizing its citizens it's a ridiculous stupid attempt at PR that's just going to backfire. BUT, police departments have been doing this for 30+ years.

Yep. Me too late 70s in Southern California.

event . The police dept is not even trying to appear conciliatory are they?

the children didn't keep a record of the prints. They made the prints on hard cards and handed the documents to the parents.

From the photo accompanying the story, identifying the product being used :

From the information site for the product:



http://www.ezchildid.com/

The article says the police post them in a database, but according to the entity which produces the product they are using, that can't happen because the software wipes out the data when the next child is processed. I suspect that is a product of bad journalism, or potentially police not understanding the system they are using.

Is it in the water or in the food?
Why are they so oblivious.
This will not improve relations when parents realize that they will better identify these kids when they grow up, are pulled over and hauled in for "questioning."
I am surprised that they are not taking DNA samples for their same reasoning.

Give the only copy (or a non data based set of three copies) to the parents of the children to be used in the unlikely event of a missing child.
If something like this must be done; do it in a way which reaffirms, to both parents and children, community over control.

That is apparently what is being done here.

From the photo accompanying the story, identifying the product being used :

From the information site for the product:



http://www.ezchildid.com/

The article says the police post them in a database, but according to the entity which produces the product they are using, that can't happen because the software wipes out the data when the next child is processed. I suspect that is a product of bad journalism, or potentially police not understanding the system they are using.

Or is this another thing that is just good for black folk?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/facial-recognition-databases-privacy-laws

snip

Fingerprints and DNA data are protected under US supreme court law, providing a possible precedent for face-prints. If a fingerprint or DNA test is collected without due cause, it can't be used in court as evidence – it constitutes an unreasonable search and seizure, outlawed by the Fourth Amendment.

The supreme court is just this week embroiled in debate over whether or not search and seizure of social media and cellphone data should require a warrant. While we grapple with today's dominant technologies, we should also be looking forward to tomorrow's, regulating the Fourth Amendment's application to futuristic technologies like CreepShield and Google Glass, which has banned facial recognition for now – but might not forever.

Laws should allow us to control which businesses and government entities have access to our faces and when. Individuals might opt in to facial recognition for interactive marketing campaigns or to be tracked in a retail store, but choose to be left out of unwarranted public government surveillance.

That's St. Louis Metropolitan PD. They have absolutely no jurisdiction in Ferguson.

That said, this was a really dumb idea.

Not resist while being handcuffed.
SMH.

Given the cities propensity for using the legal system as a huge revenue generator, why should anybody willingly given the police their fingerprints? It is one thing if they handed fingerprint cards to the parents, it is a totally different thing to use them to build a database of citizens to later target.

I was printed in the 70s.

I can understand giving the parents an updated picture, with relevant information (height, weight).

Has this procedure ever actually helped find a missing child?

I am very familiar with a case of someone taking a child and the child ended up dead. I never saw a moment during that event where the parents having fingerprints on file was supposed to help find the child.

I can understand the community wanting to show a good side to police, but I don't see how this is it.