120 lines
6.9 KiB
Standard ML
120 lines
6.9 KiB
Standard ML
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Copyright 1983
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NPG,Ltd.
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FINGERPRINTING KIDS
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Issue: Should parents voluntarily create detailed identification records
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(including fingerprints) on their children in anticipation of possible runaway
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problems or abductions? (1) Yes. You can never tell when terrible things will
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happen to a child, so its best to be prepared. (2) No. The vast majority of
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missing children are not abducted. Whether abducted or not, fingerprinting will
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do no good. It wastes time and money and pushes us that much closer to the
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creation of the Orwellian National Data Center that Congress rejected fifteen
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years ago.
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BACKGROUND: As of early 1983, 11 states had launched programs to fingerprint
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children.( These were New York, Virginia, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey,
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California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Connecticut, Rhode Island,
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Kansas, Illinois, and Indiana.)
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Most of this activity was stimulated by the passage of the Missing Children
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Act in October 1982. What the new law did was to legitimize the use of the
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FBI's national computer network,the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) for
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non-criminal purposes.
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All of the programs are voluntary. In some cases the police departments
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retain the records, while in others the fingerprint cards are turned over to the
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parents for safekeeping. The apparent purpose of the program is to help provide
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positive identification to link either children picked up, or bodies recovered,
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with missing person notices.
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Every year about 1 million children are reported missing. Of these most,
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about 800,000, are away from home for less than two weeks. About 150,000 of the
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total missing are abducted; of these two thirds are abducted by a divorced
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parent.
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Some of the reasons behind the missing children are not pretty. According to
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an article in Parade, "about 35 percent of runaways leave home because of
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incest, 53 percent because of physical neglect. The rest are "throwaways,"
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children kicked out or simply abandoned by parents who move away. Every state
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has laws against incest, child abuse, abandonment, child pornography and the
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procuring of children, but they are rarely enforced."
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POINT: Conscientious parents should have their childrens' fingerprints
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recorded to help in the event of an abduction; they shouldn't wait until after
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something terrible happens, but should take reasonable steps now. Thousands of
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children are runaways, and in many cases it is all but impossible to determine
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clearly who they really are. People change, but fingerprints don't.
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Well-intentioned but misguided civil libertarians worry about Big Brother. But
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they tend to overlook the obvious benefits of the program and concentrate on
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wildly imaginative fantasies about Big Brother. If they would come down to
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earth once in a while, and visit with and share the anguish of a family of an
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abducted child, they would quickly change their attitudes. Besides, in most
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cases the police do not keep the records, the parents do.
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COUNTERPOINT: Absent some showing that the fingerprinting will actually help
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keep children safe and help capture criminals who harm or abduct them, parents
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should refuse to have their children fingerprinted. In promoting the child
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fingerprinting program, police officials tend to be vague about how the program
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will increase the average child's safety. How does it improve children's safety
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to be fingerprinted? Surely, it may help identify a body, but that is not much
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help. Besides, dental records do the same thing and probably do a better job.
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People forget that this program is geared to eventually entering the child's
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identification data into the National Crime Information Center. That is a
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criminal records databank, and it could be very harmful to a child in the future
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to have what many employers will automatically take to be a "criminal record."
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And that is not far fetched. In April 1983 the Congress' General Accounting
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Office released a report saying that in some states children picked up as
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runaways are jailed along with real criminals. GAO found that in five states
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(Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Oregon) 39 percent
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of the juveniles incarcerated had not been charged with a serious offense,
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despite federal standards requiring that. Running away from home, shoplifting
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and other minor thefts made up most of the offenses. Even advocates admit to
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the possibility of a stigma. A PTA Council President in Virginia spoke out in
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favor of the program: "I can't think at this point of a practical reason for
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not having your fingerprints taken. It seems to me the higher the percentage of
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the population that has its fingerprints on file, the less stigma will be
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attached to it." Another mother, as her child was being fingerprinted, told a
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New York Times reporter, "Unless you're planning a life of crime for your child,
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I can't see why any parent would object." If we are really serious about
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reducing the runaway problem, we should demand that our police officials start
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looking closely into the family situations from which the runaway came from. If
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there is evidence of incest or abuse, the offendor should be prosecuted. Maybe
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if more abusive parents got that message, they would be less inclined to do the
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things that cause the vast majority of runaway cases in the first place.
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QUESTIONS:
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o Do you think that the police will be more effective in locating missing
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children if there are copies of their fingerprints on record?
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o Do you think that there is any problem with having your own records stored in
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a criminal record computer system? Would anyone assume from such records that
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you have done something wrong?
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o If a child runs away from home because of incest or physical abuse, should
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the police help put him back in that home?
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o Do you think that the voluntary fingerprinting program will make the next
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generation of American citizens less reluctant to let government keep more
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records on them? Or will it have the opposite effect and make people used to
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having this kind of record kept?
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REFERENCES:
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Fingerprinting of Children Spreading, New York Times,
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February 22, 1983
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Fingerprinting the Kids Won't Solve the Problem, The Fairfax
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Journal (editorial), April 15, 1983, p.A6
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Reston Kids Ink Up for Fingerprints, Adrian Higgins, The
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Fairfax Journal, September 19, 1983, p.A1
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Jersey County Fingerprints Pupils, Franklin Whitehouse, The
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New York Times, January 26, 1983, p.B1
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Alexandria Cops To Fingerprint School Kids, Joe O'Neill, The
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Fairfax Journal, February 23, 1983, p.A4
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Child Abductions A Rising Concern, Associated Press, The New
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York Times, December 5, 1983
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Finding Missing Children, The Washington Post (editorial),
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May 28, 1982
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(Note: Please leave your thoughts -- message or uploaded comments -- on this
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issue on Tom Mack's RBBS, The Second Ring --- (703) 759-5049. Please address
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them to Terry Steichen of New Perspectives Group, Ltd.)
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