The State : Fingerprint System Hailed

State Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp praised California’s new computerized fingerprint system as “probably the most significant development in American law enforcement” in years. The system, called Cal-I.D., works at tremendous speed to match electronic images of fingerprints with those stored in a central computer, he said. Van de Kamp cited the September kidnap-murder case of a young couple, when more than three million records had to be examined, as an example of its efficiency. “We calculated that it would have taken our fastest clerk 67 years to do the search manually, but Cal-I.D. did it in less than 20 minutes and identified a suspect who later led police to the bodies.” Van de Kamp made the remarks at the annual winter meeting of the California Press Assn.