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Domestic News
September 27, 1934
The Frontier
O'neill, O'neill City, Holt County, Nebraska
What is this article about?
The U.S. Department of Justice maintains 4,500,000 fingerprint cards for criminal identification in Washington. Director J. Edgar Hoover is implementing a robot searcher to reduce matching time from 30 seconds to five seconds.
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Fingerprints of 4,500,000 in Government Files.
Washington. - On file at the Department of Justice are 4,500,000 finger-print cards bearing the tell-tale whorls and loops by which almost any criminal in the land can be identified.
To examine all these cards at the rate of one every ten seconds would require five years, working six days a week, eight hours a day.
But through an elaborate filing system, when prints are received for identification it requires only 30 seconds to match them up with Department files.
And now J. Edgar Hoover, director of Uncle Sam's agents who wage a relentless war on gangsters, wants to cut that time to five seconds.
Even 22 seconds saved might prove a decisive factor in an emergency he pointed out.
The five-second record can be made by a "robot" searcher. It already has been applied to about 25,000 fingerprint cards and is being rapidly extended to others.
Roughly, this amazing machine works like this:
Each of the ten fingerprints received from a law enforcement agency is analyzed separately and made into a composite diagram, punched into a card.
When a sample fingerprint is received for identification, the machine is "set" according to the type of the sample and the cards fed in. Miraculously, it flips out only a dozen or so of the cards, most likely to correspond with the sample.
To establish an identification, it is necessary only to examine the fingerprint record represented by the selected punch cards.
Washington. - On file at the Department of Justice are 4,500,000 finger-print cards bearing the tell-tale whorls and loops by which almost any criminal in the land can be identified.
To examine all these cards at the rate of one every ten seconds would require five years, working six days a week, eight hours a day.
But through an elaborate filing system, when prints are received for identification it requires only 30 seconds to match them up with Department files.
And now J. Edgar Hoover, director of Uncle Sam's agents who wage a relentless war on gangsters, wants to cut that time to five seconds.
Even 22 seconds saved might prove a decisive factor in an emergency he pointed out.
The five-second record can be made by a "robot" searcher. It already has been applied to about 25,000 fingerprint cards and is being rapidly extended to others.
Roughly, this amazing machine works like this:
Each of the ten fingerprints received from a law enforcement agency is analyzed separately and made into a composite diagram, punched into a card.
When a sample fingerprint is received for identification, the machine is "set" according to the type of the sample and the cards fed in. Miraculously, it flips out only a dozen or so of the cards, most likely to correspond with the sample.
To establish an identification, it is necessary only to examine the fingerprint record represented by the selected punch cards.
What sub-type of article is it?
Crime
What keywords are associated?
Fingerprint Files
Department Of Justice
J Edgar Hoover
Robot Searcher
Criminal Identification
What entities or persons were involved?
J. Edgar Hoover
Where did it happen?
Washington
Domestic News Details
Primary Location
Washington
Key Persons
J. Edgar Hoover
Event Details
On file at the Department of Justice are 4,500,000 finger-print cards for identifying criminals. Examination of all cards would take five years, but the filing system allows matching in 30 seconds. J. Edgar Hoover wants to reduce this to five seconds using a robot searcher that analyzes fingerprints into composite diagrams punched into cards and selects likely matches.