Police officials admit that the current system is not integrated or co-ordinated and makes searching for suspects an arduous task.
The office of Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi conceded that a significant number of suspects wanted by police could be in prison, but could not give a definite percentage.
Selebi's spokesperson, Captain Ronny Naidoo, said the current fingerprint identification system was cumbersome.
"The time needed for identification sometimes takes longer than the 48-hour mandatory period before a suspect is granted bail... There could be prisoners arrested on petty crimes but sought for serious crimes whom police release because they have no information about the other serious crimes," Naidoo said.
The secretary-general of the South African Police Union, Celeste van Niekerk, also believes the current system is time-consuming, frustrating, and contributes to a waste of resources because of the common occurrence of duplication.
She said it was possible to find about 10 police officers looking for one suspect whom they did not know was in jail elsewhere in the country.
Sipho Ngwema, spokesperson for Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka, said the more time it took for suspects to be caught, the more difficult cases became, while the justice department's spokesperson, Paul Setsetse, said it was a laborious but necessary task to manually check whether an arrested suspect was wanted for other crimes elsewhere.
Ramaite said the government planned to introduce a new system known as e-government, to improve government service delivery.
And Naidoo said a new computer-based system known as e-justice would revolutionise police efficiency. It is expected to be introduced in January 2003 and will give police access to a system known as Morphotouch, which will contain the names and fingerprints of over 50 000 suspects.
An automated fingerprint identification system, containing the names of wanted criminals, will also be introduced.
Quelle: Independent Online
