LAPD to Ration Fingerprint Analysis

This is what I am talking about when I point to useless government spending limiting more aggressive government behavior. If you don't have the money to, say, get the fingerprints off a bag of drugs, well then maybe you can't prosecute the drug dealer for the victimless crime of possession of drugs.

Each of the LAPD's 21 stations and divisions will be allowed 10 cases a month in which fingerprint evidence will be promptly analyzed. Violent crime cases are not part of the rationing plan, reports LaTi.

LaTi continues:

Detectives wait on average between two and three months to get print results back from the lab, LAPD officials said. In some cases, the delay can last more than a year and, in older cases in which the detectives have not pressed for analysis, prints are ignored altogether because the unit cannot keep up with the constant inflow of cases...

Since the freeze in 2009, the fingerprint unit has lost 27 of its 97 analysts. Over the next five years, 20% of the unit is expected to retire, officials said. Additionally, furloughs that are part of the city's attempt to close a budget shortfall have exacerbated the problem, as have the neck and back injuries that analysts commonly suffer from long hours hunched over desks staring at prints through magnifying glasses.

Meanwhile, the demands on the unit continue unabated. Last year, detectives requested fingerprints to be collected at 19,000 crime scenes, and the pace so far this year is the same. As a result, LAPD officials have decided on a rationing plan that they hope will bring the workload in line with the unit's capabilities.

Under the plan, which the department will roll out in coming months, each of the LAPD's 21 police stations and specialized divisions will be allotted only 10 cases each month in which fingerprints will be analyzed promptly, Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese said. All other cases will be placed on a waiting list.