Why aren't everyone's fingerprints on record?

It's certainly possible, but I think the suggestion of this would be met with cries of outrage and Big Brother. There have been similar suggestions of establishing a national DNA registry, which could be done at birth. Within 20 years, there would be no "record not found" results in CODIS searches. read more

The upshot is that everyone's fingerprints aren't being recorded because people don't want to give them up. If they did, it wouldn't have all that much impact on crime. A national ID card would have a significant impact on crime, but Americans are nowhere near ready to accept that. read more