The use of the Automated Fingerprint Identification System to improve the quality of service rendered by the South African Police Service on the East Rand

Abstract

The globalisation process that drives the progression and trans-national nature of crime requires that the police should use sophisticated and/or state-of-the art technologies to help them to combat criminality. The use of technology by the police is thus viewed as one of the appropriate responses to deal with the threats posed by crime. In an attempt to ascertain the significance of technology in police work, this research examined the impact that the use of biometric technology such as the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, has had on the quality of seiVices rendered by the South African Police Service. Following the police's task of identifying criminal fingerprints, the problem encountered in this research was that, ever since the introduction of the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, no research had been conducted to assess the impact thereof on the level and quality of seiVices rendered by the South African Police SeiVice. This problem was further intensified by the fact that there was no framework to assess the impact that the utilisation of the Automated Fingerprint Identification System has had on police work in South Africa. Consequently, the problems that were identified in this research compromised not only the quality of seiVices rendered by the police, but also the safety and security within communities. The findings in this research showed that the utilisation of biometric technologies such as the Automated Fingerprint Identification System have helped the police to accurately identify and arrest criminal suspects. However, some of the conclusions reached suggested that the quantitative aspect of the utilisation of biometric systems and the elated portable apparatuses within the South African Police Service was emphasised more than the qualitative aspect thereof. The emphasis was evident in the statistics regarding the use of the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, which focused primarily on police productivity and to a lesser degree on accountability related issues. This study espoused a qualitative paradigm and the investigations in the research were focused on the East Rand policing precinct. The participants who informed this research were selected from the research population using random and purposive sampling techniques. In the same way, the data that informed this research was collected using semi-structured interviews and an in-depth review of the literature on policing and its utilisation of the different technologies. The research espoused social constructivism and phenomenology as the philosophical worldviews of choice to form constructivist phenomenology and to attain theoretical triangulation. Moreover, evaluation research and a case study were espoused as the research designs of choice, to attain methodological triangulation. The various triangulation techniques espoused in this research project were critical in attaining quality assurance in terms of the research methodology applied. In the same way, a myriad of qualitative techniques such as dependability, transferability, confimability and credibility were also employed in order to ensure that the integrity of the data that was collected in this study remained intact. Finally, the data that was collected to inform this research was analysed using the qualitative content analysis technique. Similarly, the measures taken to ensure that the safety of the research participants was delineated in this same research report.