Dusting For Fingerprints With Baby Powder

I recently witnessed a police investigator arrive at a house burglary scene with the notorious fingerprints unit.

A wealthy person’s home was broken into. The officer with the kapunda, holding the black case, had his spectacles at the tip of his nose and strutted to the smashed window, meticulously placing everything on the ground.

What he pulled out made me laugh so hard that everyone turned around to see what the joke was, and I simply pointed back at the fingerprint specialist.

He pulled out a small plastic container with what was clearly baby powder and short pieces of sticky tape.

Yes, I am talking about the powder many use on their faces in the absence of proper face powder.

Well, you know how this story ends: The burglars have yet to be caught.

I stood there wondering if Namibia really has a fingerprint database, and if so, what does it even look like? I’m genuinely curious about this.

Let the police get the benefit of the doubt, and imagine there are gigantic colonial files somewhere in a holding cell where the black, smudged imprints of grimy fingers are piled.

Do they use magnifying glasses to compare the fingerprints they need to authenticate, like real detectives? How long does that process take?

Consider this: A bold burglar snatches a handbag from a table in the Erongo region with his right hand, violating the law with the audacity of James Bond.

And what happens thereafter?

You will not believe it! The exact right hand that defied the law in the Erongo region is spotted hundreds of kilometres away in the //Kharas region, casually enjoying a cocktail on a beautiful beach after snatching a cellphone from a restaurant table.

Is this elusive criminal apprehended? Certainly not!

The following month, the criminal walks into a police station, slap his right hand onto the counter, and walks out with a shiny police clearance certificate, all while grinning about the system’s inefficiencies.

Let us now discuss the wonders of technical progress.

You’d think that in an era when Elon Musk is sending talking ‘Dankie Botswana’ into space and artificial intelligence is progressing at dizzying speed, scanning the bloody things into a computer would be a piece of cake. No way, not in Namibia!

In fact, one would think that police stations would be linked digitally via the internet, yet they are only linked by gossip.

The authorities appear to take pride in their stubborn adherence to ancient techniques, dismissing the concept of interconnected databases as if it were an alien concept from some other galaxy.

In their defence, who wants the convenience of rapid information interchange between police stations when they can enjoy the thrill of waiting three weeks to find out if someone has a criminal record?

It’s almost as if they’re playing hide and seek, except the crooks have an unfair advantage, because the cops are too preoccupied with piles of paperwork and hopelessly obsolete systems. How charming!

Isn’t the Namibian Police part of the home affairs ministry?

Therefore, how does the ministry rate so high in biometric efficiency if their police function continues to play amagoes with criminals?

I know you’re laughing right now, but when that tate with the baby powder and sticky tape comes to your house to collect fingerprints, you’ll wish it wasn’t your house being dusted.

Until then, let us pray to our forefathers that the country would soon embrace the benefits of digital integration and say goodbye to the era of incompetent cops, fragmented databases and criminals who can’t help but laugh in the face of justice.

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