Sheriff Proposes Auto Fee Increase

The Sheriff’s Department on Wednesday proposed a $1 increase in the cost of registering a vehicle in Orange County, with the revenues going to purchase a state-of-the-art fingerprint identification system.

The fee increase, which the Board of Supervisors will consider next week, would generate about $2 million a year, according to Frank Fitzpatrick, director of forensic science for the Sheriff’s Department.

The money would be used to replace the 12-year-old fingerprint identification computer, which has almost run out of memory capacity and needs new parts that are no longer available.

Officials hope to eventually expand the system to give all police and Sheriff’s Department patrol cars in the county the ability to identify fingerprints.

“This would allow more immediate knowledge of past criminal histories, outstanding warrants and linkages to other crimes,” according to a report prepared by the Sheriff’s Department.

Expanding the system to patrol cars is expected to cost about $10 million and would take years to complete.

La Habra Police Chief Steven H. Staveley, president of the Orange County Police Chiefs Assn., said the new equipment would be a huge boon for law enforcement.

It would upgrade the county’s mainframe computer that is used to identify partial fingerprints law enforcement officers pick up at crime scenes. At present, it can take the system several days to identify a print.

An upgraded system would be able to identify prints in a matter of minutes, cutting the amount of time it takes officers to apprehend suspects.

“This is very important because it will allow police to identify people within about 20 minutes,” Staveley said.

This year, the Legislature passed a law allowing counties to raise the registration fee for a five-year period and use the proceeds to purchase new fingerprinting systems.