It’s understandable that police might need time to untangle the identity of some people they pick up given the complexities of similar names and aliases.
But how long should it take?
A story in last Sunday’s Denver Post outlined allegations made by the American Civil Liberties Union that wrongly arrested people can languish in jail for days and even weeks. The organization is suing the city and county of Denver.
It is difficult to understand why it would take that long to figure out the person behind bars is not the bad guy in question.
Law enforcement authorities say they have taken steps toward fixing the problem, and that’s a good thing.
We hope the lawsuit filed by the ACLU prompts additional reform so such incidents become fewer and farther apart.
While it’s true the proliferation of identity theft has complicated matters for authorities, we would think they should be able to sort out true identities quickly once fingerprints are taken and compared to records.
If that doesn’t work, since not everyone has fingerprint records on file, then authorities should take matters a step further and consult other records to get closer to the truth.
And if someone has been wrongly arrested on a warrant, there ought to be a way to make note of it so it doesn’t happen again. For instance: “This John Smith, see attached photo or attached identifying information, is not the John Smith we’re after.”
Those sort of notations are appended on occasion, but we’re told it’s not routine, and it ought to be.
According to filings in Denver’s federal court, more than 500 people have been wrongly arrested during a seven-year period.
A story by Post reporter Christopher N. Osher said the arrests happen for a variety of reasons. Often, the person detained had the same name as a wanted person, but authorities failed to double-check the date of birth.
Others, who had their identity stolen, were arrested for the misdeeds committed by someone using their personal identifying information.
A 2010 audit by the city auditor’s office took authorities to task for the situation. The purpose of the performance audit was to evaluate the city against other jurisdictions when it comes to arrest identity issues and evaluate the processes in place to minimize such problems.
Auditors chastised authorities for failing to keep good metrics on the situation.
We would be remiss if we did not make note of new policies whereby jailers alert the police identification bureau when prisoners say they’re not the person in question.
The changes are welcome, and as the ACLU lawsuit shows, overdue.
As authorities continue to evaluate the procedures in place, we hope they take greater pains to ensure they’ve got the right person behind bars.
