Traffic violators face ID theft check
Give fingerprint or get jail time
*Judi Villa*
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 20, 2005 12:00 AM
Motorists cited for criminal traffic violations will have to give their
thumbprint to Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies or go to jail.
"This will be mandatory. No exceptions," Sheriff Joe Arpaio said
Wednesday. "If they don't want to give the print, they're going directly
to jail. Period."
Arpaio launched the new policy Wednesday across the Valley, expanding
and toughening a pilot program in which motorists pulled over for
routine traffic stops were asked to voluntarily provide a thumbprint.
The goal was to catch people who took the wheel with stolen or phony
driver's licenses and ultimately to combat identity theft in Arizona,
which ranks top in the nation for the crime.
But Arpaio said about 67 percent of motorists declined to voluntarily
give their thumbprints. Although Arpaio cannot require people to provide
a fingerprint if they are cited for civil traffic violations, he said he
can if the citation is criminal.
Criminal traffic violations include reckless driving, excessive speed
(more than 20 mph above the posted speed limit) and driving under the
influence, while civil violations include speeding, failure to yield or
unsafe lane changes.
Officials at the Maricopa County Attorney's Office said they had not
been consulted about the new policy and could not comment whether it was
legal.
"Of course we can take prints," Arpaio said, referring to criminal
traffic violators. "We can arrest everybody if we want to."
The prints are entered into the Automated Fingerprint Identification
System to see if drivers are using fake identification.
Civil libertarians have been vehemently opposed to the program since the
pilot began in February in the West Valley. It expanded to the East
Valley three months later.
"We still have a major constitutional privacy issue here," Dawn Wyland,
interim director of the Arizona Civil Liberties Union, said Wednesday.
It's one thing to take a fingerprint from a person suspected of driving
drunk, Wyland said. But it's something entirely different to threaten
people with jail for offenses they never dreamed would land them behind
bars.
Across the Valley, motorists cited for criminal traffic violations are
not routinely arrested and fingerprinted. Officers often opt to cite and
release them instead.
"You can go to jail for driving a little too fast through a school
zone," Wyland said. "How much are we going to put up with? This is a bad
one."
Wyland also questioned Arpaio's link between traffic tickets and
identity theft.
"The trouble I'm having is finding the nexus between people violating
traffic laws and identity theft," she said. "I just don't see it."
Still, Arpaio insisted the mandatory thumbprinting could reduce identity
theft and help deputies locate wanted people. Nearly 7,500 traffic
citations have been issued this year during the pilot program. Roughly
3,000 of those tickets were for criminal traffic offenses.
About 15 of those cited were found to be using fraudulent
identification, Arpaio said. One man was wanted for sexual assault, he said.
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