The United States government at Washington, D. C., has established a
criminal identification bureau, or what may be called an "Habitual
Criminal Registry," for keeping the records of all men convicted of
crimes against the federal laws, and also all indicted by grand
juries of the United States courts. The bureau is to be under the
supervision of the department of justice, and all prisons in the
United States where government prisoners are or have been confined
have been directed to send their records, consisting of photographs,
Bertillon measurement cards and finger-print identification sheets
immediately to the department of justice.
This bureau is intended to be used for the identification of federal
lawbreakers. It has been urged for some time by criminologists.
Heretofore each prison in the United States has kept its own records,
and a federal lawbreaker could serve a term in one prison and be freed
without the fact ever becoming known that he had served a previous
term for a similar offense in another penitentiary.
Now all records are to be classified in Washington, and not in any of
the federal jails or prisons. The Bertillon measurements, photographs
and _finger prints_ of the convicts are to be taken and sent to the
central bureau.
Also, the records of all men suspected of being yeggmen, train or
postoffice robbers are to be taken. Those held in federal jails under
indictment, etc., are to be sent there.
This bureau will ascertain the record of each man from the date he
has, and if one not yet given trial proves to be an habitual criminal,
this fact will be made known to the prosecuting attorney and the judge
previous to the hearing, and if the man is convicted it will mean that
he will be given the limit sentence.
At the present time there are about 8,000 known criminals who violate
the government laws, and a close tab is to be kept upon these in the
future. It will go hard on a known criminal convicted in a United
States court hereafter.