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How can children learn faster what brings and I believe is to an emergency sooner how do you get the right man in the right job the answer is computers only computers can cope with a diversity of municipal demands and to help you understand some of the some of the uses of computers we bring to the series titled computers in modern city government Your host of these programs is that produce that administrator Dr savages and today's topic deals with catching criminals by computer doctor such as the field of criminal justice is one of great concern to our society the increase in crime is a danger signal computers However in modern computerized technology has a role to play in correcting this situation and perhaps reversing this trend our guest today is Dr R.J. go Lotty director of The New York State identification and intelligence system Dr Galati is on leave from the New York Police Department where he is an assistant chief inspector Dr Galani the New York State identification intelligence system represents a unique. Step toward using computers to change the crime picture we could describe for us the type criminal justice process and what the problem is that the New York state intelligence and identification system and I says is supposed to solve what is the basic problem at the state level affecting the criminal justice process Well Dr Sam somebody delighted to discuss this. To begin with. We're speaking today about catching criminals with computers I think if we want to be effective in catching criminals with computers we must look at the total criminal justice system the system is composed of six fundamental. Functional areas and people often forget that we not only have police we must have prosecutors we must have the courts must have probation officers we must have correctional institutions and we must have parole officers and all of these are working with the same input so to speak in computer times and have the same goals for society and if any one of the functions does not work well with the others we find that we're going to have less than an effective criminal justice system and if we wish to catch criminals Well we must have a good system for catching them in the total system must work as a system rather than as a disjointed process OK now in New York state where you mentioned in the criminal justice process we have these six pieces police prosecutors courts corrections probation and parole is a six different agencies usually what are the problems that you encounter in trying to deal with and trying to coordinate the activities of these agencies how many such agencies are there for instance and what are the information problems Steve you see there are thirty six hundred. Separate agencies Thomas agencies in the criminal justice administration process in the state of New York and indeed there were six hundred eleven police departments separate independent police departments alone is part of this total picture now these are scattered throughout a very large state and in terms of geography alone there is little connection or it's a change of mission between them but in times also of their functional differentiation we find that there is little. Exchange of information on a routine basis showing on a separate individual case where a detective is now investigating some kind of a crime he can go and get this information and will get it and internally but will he know where to look for it because there is no central index no central file where he can go and find out who has information OK what kind of problem then let's take a sheriff or a police chief in some some city upstate a perhaps in a suburb of New York City what kind of problem is he like to have that requires information from other jurisdictions in the state well as we know that our society is becoming more mobile all the time and criminals I'm almost more mobile than most of us and particularly in times of trying to commit their crimes elsewhere than where they are likely to be most sought so as a result it is important for us to have information in New York City which may be lying dormant in the files up in Albany or up in Buffalo and unless this information is made available we're obviously not going to have the necessary information either for investigation at the point of the police action or in times of later action in the courts for prosecution or particularly as it relates to say a probation officer or a probation officer must give the court a. Thorough study of a person that the court is about to either bail or sentence and unless he is able to poll all the police departments in the state all of the courts in the state all of this good time is all the other probation officers all of jails and so on he's not going to give a complete report to the judge now our attempt is to bring all this information together in one central location overcoming the boundaries of. The various jurisdictional entities overcoming the barriers between the functions and overcoming the problem of geography so that one inquiry to one central location will develop all this information in. Giving you total information from one source rapidly accurately completely by the use of a masterful computer I see in other words in various ways it is important for people involved in the criminal justice process to try to get information from other jurisdictions and one of the other three thirty six hundred jurisdictions in the in the in the state so that for example if a if a police officer arrest someone in. Let's say in Syracuse. It's useful for him to know whether the individual that he arrested has another record in other in other cities in the state or whether he's had any any dealings with the state police or what he's been arrested in New York City or vice versa and also I suppose that the proper basis of the court also is to find out if a person is being sentenced for a crime and in Albany it's important for that office in order to get a complete picture of this individual's background animists and his history to find out if he's had other scrapes with the law in various cities and with thirty six hundred agencies including six hundred eleven police departments I can imagine that's a formidable problem what what kind of advantages are there in centralizing the the information in this criminal justice process what what are the identifiable kinds of savings or improvements you can expect to get as a result of centralizing things in a central Nice's system. Well stay there are a number of significant advantages to this because the most obvious advantage is that you will make one inquiry to one location and you get the total information available from any of the other agencies or you might have to poll many agencies but that means better safety for the public doesn't it certainly does mean the big advantage that's exactly so it's more safety for the public in that there will be better investigations more the more appropriate types of investigations that also has a very significant bearing upon a person's civil liberties rapid information about a person will protect his liberties in times of his ability to get bail or to get discharged on his own recognizance what we probably some sophist confected you know brought up before the program started you mentioned some kind of startling information about ordinarily how long a person is kept while information is being developed to find out whether he should be kept in jail up after arraignment or not so right Steve I mean we have this problem a very real problem in the past it took ten to fifteen days to get a response from the Identification Bureau in Albany or elsewhere in the country so that the judge could decide whether to bail or to how to sentence and as a result of this people were normally being held without bail or in the alternative being let go without full knowledge about the person so that many people who should not have been let go or let go and many people who are being held by being held unnecessary length of time both to the detriment of their own civil liberties and also to the cost to the state of maintaining them in a temporary lockup this type of thing now is being overcome by virtue of the central computer facility because with the speed available through the central computer facility and with our communication devices we can make it possible for the judge to know within a period of five twenty two hours all he needs to know for proper purposes of bail sentencing. I thought about the person before him I see so let's see two of the major advantages there are one improved safety and protection for the public in being able to. Sentence criminals properly and secondly improved civil liberties for a person arrested by not having him sitting around for two weeks while people try to find out whether he's dangerous or not how about a third factor how about the efficiency factor how many records were being kept by all the various thirty six hundred jurisdictions and police departments in the state that's a very good point amount of fact. There are two very important factors related to this diffusion of records where records were kept as they have been in the past in small departments and medium sized palms and large departments and probation offices and elsewhere throughout the state you had this tremendous amount of duplications and redundancy of record record keeping with a very expensive price tag on it it's very difficult to pin down exactly how much this is costing but the snowstorm of paper does cost a tremendous amount for example the P.C.I. the European identification in New York City Police Department has somewhat over two hundred employees engaged in a redundant operation which is now being I believe slowly phased out. This is saving perhaps about two million dollars And in the tough budget year this is only one sample of the types of savings that are available or will be available valuable to criminal justice administration very good what was that number on the total records that you estimated criminal records were floating around the state we've done a extrapolation as we have done a study which indicates to us that there are eighty five million records in the criminal justice agencies of the state and these are frequently duplicate of what is in other files redundant information and an accessible because of the very valuable and they're not available at the point in time of decision dead records stored away and not not accessible not retrievable when someone with. He needs it all to help make a decision about the about a criminal or an individual who's been apprehended what so what is the background what's the nicest New York State identification and intelligence system that's quite a mouthful I guess that's why we call it nice is when did it start and what exactly is it when when did nice first get organized we were made a state agency by statute in one thousand nine hundred fifty five and we were placed in the executive department of the state of New York for a very specific reason the purpose being that we would report only to the government directly to the governor so that we would not be in the. Line of jurisdiction on the chain of command of any operating agency we have no powers of arrest with no pause because aeration no positive supervision or adjudication or prosecution will strictly a service agency to all the other agencies of Justice now what that one of the elements of your robbed of your computerized Nice's system what tell us about the central databank and then perhaps about the types of communication when we talk about the central databank what kind of data do you have a kind of records are you having a central data bank of present time stave we have building sort of from the ground up we've laid a very firm foundation by creating a large computerized file of criminal histories summary case histories of people of interest to the system and we have converted to computer readable files both disks and tape six hundred thousand summary case histories records on six hundred thousand individuals individuals now we also have. Converted to the computer one point six million sets of fingerprints. So that is now possible when a set of fingerprints comes in we're able to cite in effect that set of prints against one point six million sets of prints in as little as six seconds in a maximum of twenty one seconds and get a an identification if we do have that fingerprint in a file at all. So these are the two basic computerized elements we now have this is a foundation upon which we're going to build a much more elaborate system particularly in reference to analytical type modules right how about how about communications how do local police departments throughout the state how does the New York City Police Department how to various courts sheriffs probation officers about the state get this information from from and I says Well we have numerous methods of communication we have course telephone mail and Korea systems but we also have the state police teletype system which which we won terminal and which is accessible throughout the state but one of the most significant things Davis we have developed a network of facsimile installations throughout the state and this is the first statewide fax only network in the world this means that anywhere in the state of New York within an hour's drive and of course here in the city we have so many located around it's much more accessible and that. Matter of fact we have some thirty machines here in the city of New York. But anywhere in the state it is possible to send to us any kind of graphic data such as a set of fingerprints the fingerprints are taken of the arrestee for example and the set of princes placed upon the facsimile machine and a hard copy of those princes printed out to us or was sent to us and received that niceness we then such that within a period of two hours we generate from the computer the summary case history the criminal history of this person if he is indeed in our files and we put this on the facts and return it so that a. Hard copy of the person is going to record available as a document for a court presentation is in the hands of the original sender within two hours after you've sent the set of prints to us and that's a process that before you went computer in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight would take more like ten to fourteen days and a fourteen days in times of the communication the mail of course took three to four days itself this is done within a period of two hours through the roads or the actual communication within a few minutes facsimile That's very impressive one of the. But see how can one of the different ways in which local. Police departments can ask for information they can send you a set of fingerprints they can also I guess SEND YOU ARE A name of a person that they've picked up and want some information on John Smith a certain height weight age color of ice color of hair and so on one of the one of the different ways that you operate I think this is kind of interesting because it indicates the problems that you have you've got as you indicated you've got one point six million think of sets of fingerprints on file kind of classified by the computer. And you've got six hundred thousand records of individuals with criminal histories stored in the computer and you've got I think about six million name cards don't you that's correct yes and these include aliases so it's not an Associates mean different people but six million different names Tom let's suppose let's follow the process through suppose a local sheriff or plot suppose that the New York City Police Department picks up someone has to take fingerprints and they go to their facsimile terminal and they send those fingerprints to you exactly what happens and let's carry through step by step what do your friends do get up and what part is computerized what part of still manual if we start with fingerprints as the kind of input information the fingerprints would be received as I said on a facsimile machine just as it was sent from New York City to an A and this would include not only fingerprints but some pedigree data as well including course the name of the person as he gave it some in that this may or may not be as right name but at least it will have a name the name then will be the subject of a search in our name file and those is very interesting we found out when we went into it that there is no such thing as a good computerized name file anywhere in the world and I say world advisedly. If you want to computerize ten thousand names you can get a pretty good file but as soon as you talk about a million or six minutes we're making. Just as much not such we are now researching this to try to develop a good automated name file computerized name but in the meantime you have to use a manual search on your name file not not computer search right interesting for those people think that computers do anything warning they don't do anything and everything and I think that's a good point to bring up and there is a role for the human being here now and as a result of this name site fifty percent of the cases we will find a person in the file and the other fifty percent we have to go to what is known as a full technical search we have to classify that print this takes some three or four minutes with a classification expert and he derives from that a formula. The formula then is fed into the computer and as I said before with then and this we will then of socialists against a one point six million sets of primes and the result will have a discrete. Result and we will be able to take this out of identification then for an individual and then pick the base print out of the file compare it with the incoming print and if indeed it does match we know that this man whatever name he might have given is indeed the man who has this record in a file and then your clerk goes over to your facsimile transmission device and transmits the first I'm sorry I'm sorry no one would be pushed and out from the computer would come this complete summary case history about this individual and all his previous encounters arrests convictions sentences parole probation information historical information about the individual and then this gets printed out on the computer and then what happens then then once it comes out of the computer this is then put on the return facsimile and they complete record is received at the vegetating location ready for a court presentation. OK What about so. I guess that classification process is tricky when you say don't take three or four men. It's but if you've got a lot of our fingerprints to classify. Then you've got you've got problems I suppose is that something that might in time be done by computer classifying think of Prince there's no question in my mind that will very soon we will have a breakthrough on a Syria that will be able to classify fingerprints by optical scanning and computer technology. But see on the question of facsimile machines let me get that straight you've got how many flexible machines scattered throughout the state now we have over one hundred five machines one hundred five facsimile machines and about thirty of them are located in New York City and that it correct I'm glad that we're taking that New York City is taking full advantage of the services that you're providing at the state level Bob. To say that the you know how many. And I guess you've got them strategically located so that any authorized individual police officer or anyone formally an official in the criminal justice process is within one hour's drive of throughout the state is within one hour of a one of the facsimile terminal so they can get information that way and two hours turnaround time that's pretty impressive and that's a very impressive cut down from that ten to fourteen day delay when you weren't even sure that in ten to fourteen days you got all the information from all parts of the state anyway about how many searches a day you conducting how many fingerprints get sent to you at an ISIS for Iraq for identification and for file searches we do about a thousand soldiers on fingerprints today and we get another large batch of Price me a thousand which are by name only and these of course we can do as we said before by name so it's only in. Varies from the fingerprint process and also in terms of the certainty of identification and I see now what about the question of security people are rightfully concerned about things like Invasion of Privacy is it possible for an author How can an authorized individual get information about about a citizen we. Very much concern Steve about this problem of security and we feel that we are able to provide greater security at a central data bank because of the nature of the computer itself with its built in safeguards its security packages program packages and the fact that it isn't a central location as I mentioned before the program I would much rather have my part of gold in the Federal Reserve Bank and some drive in bank in the outlying areas and likewise I think information in a subtle data bank with all the security that the resources we have to protect it will be more secure in terms of its security alone in terms of privacy we have. Done everything possible in conceivable to make sure that at every step of our development concerned with and responsive to the problems of protecting privacy we have on our staff our own west and you offer privacy and freedom was frequently quoted by the Supreme Court in terms of their privacy interests and decisions. We feel that we can better than perhaps some local agency preserve the privacy aspects of security. To the nth degree likely because of a concern we have as a result of grave concern in this regard we've had support from the New York Civil Liberties Union from the various To Justice Systems Committee for children and many other organizations who are most conscious of civil liberties and privacy and freedom could you give us a brief rundown Bob I'm on some of the futures that you envision for nice as what kinds of up very briefly what kinds of research are you working on what kind of future expansion extension of the system do you see them lead just minute question because I think one of the significant things that you have here not only Besides having a central information facility is the fact that we have this tremendous capability for research not only research in the criminalistic sense or in the terms of analytical modules and this is very interesting in and of itself but also in terms of behavioral sciences criminology in the product. Russians which are not now vailable France are I mentioned to you before the show that we have so little knowledge of the process sees. The National Crime Commission reports indicate the areas the gaps where there is so little knowledge that we have in this area OK. Let me see then one of the couple of points you mentioned were voice princes some possible future expansions an automatic license plate scanning and automatic fingerprint classification and things of that sort of maybe even pulling laundry marks into the system well as a native New Yorker I'm pleased that New York State is taking the lead in this kind of activity our guest today has been Dr R.J. Giladi director of The New York State identification intelligence system who's been telling us about how computers are being used to catch criminals and to improve the safety of our streets thank you very much Dr. Quite a pleasure thank you thank you Dr Service You've been listening to another broadcast of computers in modern city government if you have any questions about today's program or wish to receive a free booklet titled introducing the computers address them to computers W N Y's the New York one hundred seven computers W N Y's see New York one hundred seven and request this free booklet introducing the computer next week the topic is finding jobs for the jobless So join us again same time next week for another look at computers in modern city government.