Digitized photos help track kidnapped children

Children living in Hudson County, N.J., which lies just across the river from New York City, who become victims of kidnappings may be located quickly thanks to a state-of-the-art system that transmits digitized portraits of missing children to officials within minutes after the initial police report has been completed.

Using an image-based application developed by Unisys Corp., Blue Bell, Pa., the Hudson County Prosecutor’s office takes digitized photographs of elementary school students in Hudson County and stores the images on CD-ROM. The photo file, including the image and other information, can be accessed instantly and distributed if a child is abducted or reported missing, accelerating the search process during the critical first few hours.

The child-portrait project targets first and fifth graders. The Hudson County Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) office provides a portable digitized image station to each of the county’s elementary schools to capture students’ images. The portraits — stored as confidential records at the school superintendents’ offices — can be released to law enforcement officials, the media, community groups and other groups assisting when a child is reported missing. And with software enhancements, it will be possible to electronically modify a child’s photo, producing a likeness of how he or she would look years after the photo was taken.

“The digitized child-portrait service offers this community a simple-to-use, cost-effective weapon in the battle to keep our children safe,” says County Prosecutor Carmen Mesano. “The project — by involving law-enforcement agencies, the county schools, parents and children — also raises the public’s level of awareness regarding abductions. In this situation, both the process and outcome reinforce our mission to continually search for innovative ways to protect the citizens of Hudson County while containing the cost of our operations.” The county’s criminal justice system handles an unusually high number of parental kidnappings. Many are international in scope because the county is one of the most ethnically diverse in the nation.

In addition to the child-portrait project, the imaging application is being used to capture criminal portraits. As a result, witnesses and investigators in any county police station can view criminal mug shots matching specific descriptions instead of sifting through countless photos. The cost-efficient system is the first local government initiative in the nation to make dual use of this innovative technology, imaging both kids and criminals. It is being implemented via a cooperative effort between the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office and the county, which is funding the project.

Digitized photos of criminals are captured at local police stations and stored on a server located at the prosecutor’s office. The record room for each municipality’s police department is equipped with an imaging station. The system assists the prosecutor’s office in developing photo line-ups in which crime witnesses identify criminals for prosecution. Witnesses are also able to view these images on workstations in police stations across the country. Because the system database can sort photos according to specific criteria, witnesses need only review photos that match their descriptions of the criminals.