Safety officers think ink for 'Kid Print' program

7-Nov-1997, by Monika Guttman

Getting little kids to dip their hands in ink is no problem.


	Left, Janet Oldak brought her son in to be fingerprintedby Officer Daniel Hect as part of a program to help recover children should they ever go missing. Right, Mark May and his son, Nathan, shows 10 good reasons for a post-fingerprinting application of soap.

Getting them to hold still long enough to put the ink - in fingerprint form- on a specially-designed card was the problem faced by USC Department of Public Safety's COPPS (Community Oriented Policing and Problem Solving) officers, who organized a program called Kid Print for the USC HSC Child Care Center.

"If your child is lost and you need to contact authorities, in that time of crisis the last thing you're thinking is 'Where is that latest picture?'" said Officer Daniel Hect, one of the COPPS officers conducting the program.

"This gives parents direct access to the most complete information on their child and shortens the interview process," he said.

For Kid Print, Officer Glen Foote' developed a special card that has room for a child's fingerprints, photograph and statistics. Hect then fingerprinted the youngsters at the Child Care Center and gave the card to the parents for safe keeping.

"We don't keep a record of the information," noted Lt Joseph White of the DPS's HSC detail. "All the material goes home with the parents. It's information that would be useful to law enforcement agencies if the child is ever missing."

Every year, there are nearly 1 million cases of missing children, including approximately 500,000 child abduction cases, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Parents were encouraged to add a lock of hair to the package, which could be used to obtain a DNA sample if ever needed for identification purposes. More than 40 children and their parents participated in Kid Print at the Child Care Center. The program was so successful, said Hect, that a similar effort will take place at the Child Care Center on the University Park Campus.

COPPS officers are also using the Kid Print program as part of their community outreach effort. More than 400 community children have participated, either in programs at local Crime Fairs or in programs conducted through the Family of Five schools.

Kid Print is also available for children of USC faculty, staff and students, said White. "If there's interest, we can set up a time or day and make it available to all the HSC community," he said. Anyone interested in participating in the program should call the HSC detail of the Dept. of Public Safety at 342-1202.

Article reprinted with permission. The original source is located here.