VALUE OF FINGER PRINTS
POLICE SERGEANT’S VIEW “VERY HANDY IN LATER YEARS” (New Zealand Press Association) GISBORNE, June 14. About 75 criminals prosecuted in New Zealand every year would evade the law as first offenders bpt for finger printing by the police, said SeniorSergeant D. M. Campbell -to members of the Gisborne Rotary Club today. “We always take finger prints for serious charges; they are very handy in later years,’’ he said.
He recalled the case of a man arrested who gave not “the usual John Smith as his name, but something high faluting.” The police thought it must be his right name, so he was locked up after finger prints had been taken. “In the morning we knew he had been in before because of the way he had folded up his blankets,’’ said Senior-Sergeant Campbell. “His finger prints were sent to Wellington, and it was found that he had 14 previous convictions against him.’’
If the law were enforced to its fullest extent in New Zealand, life would now not be worth living, he said. The police were given great powers in enforcing the law. Some of the clauses of the Police Offences Act were very old. “It is an offence to lead a horse,” he added. “The law says that it must be put in a dray.” Discussing the staffing of the Police Force, Senior-Sergeant Campbell said: “In Gisborne we used to have a gaol, but now prisoners are sent to Napier. Two days are lost. The other day a man was sent to Auckland on a custody job. and that meant that he worked 27 hours in two days. It is the same all over New Zealand, this shortage of staff through jobs such as this. We are the only department of the State that hasn’t a 40-hour week. They told us it couldn’t be done, and we work a 48-hour week. However, we get a blanket overtime allowance for working at week-ends and holidays.’’ Senior-Sergeant Campbell said that if a junior constable received the ordinary rates of pay as those paid for overtime in industry he would get more than a senior-sergeant.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume XC, Issue 27376, 15 June 1954, Page 7
Word Count
357VALUE OF FINGER PRINTS Press, Volume XC, Issue 27376, 15 June 1954, Page 7
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