ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 28, 1997 TAG: 9703280058
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Critics say the practice trashes students' right to privacy, as well as some precious memories.
Most likely to succeed ... at armed robbery?
That's the question being asked by the New York Police Department, which has ordered its detectives to use high school yearbooks as mug books to help identify young criminal suspects.
A department bulletin circulated last month said each detective squad ``must have the most current yearbook for each secondary school in their respective commands.''
Police officials argue the order merely made formal a time-tested technique of having victims and witnesses peruse yearbooks to identify suspects.
``We've been doing this forever, and it works,'' said one veteran investigator who insisted on anonymity. ``It's helped solve murders.''
But news reports about the directive Thursday drew a bitter response. Critics said the practice trashes students' right to privacy, as well as some precious memories.
Norman Siegel, head of the New York Civil Liberties Union, called it outrageous. And state Sen. David Paterson accused the department of ``trying to create a database of kids that haven't done anything wrong. ... Should these kids be subjected to possibly being falsely identified simply because they took a picture with the French Club?''
Oui, responded Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
``The picture in a yearbook is like any other picture: If you are involved in a crime, it can be used to identify you,'' said Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor.
A police spokesman, Lenny Alcivar, said that unlike criminal mug shots, the yearbook photos come into play only after evidence points to the possibility that a student was involved in a crime.
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