The United States has no national identity card, and many Americans do not have passports. The driver's license registries are one of the primary ways that law enforcement personnel can identify suspects and victims in crimes. Moreover, a huge portion of law enforcement resources go to fighting traffic offenses, because traffic violations account for more wrongful deaths than intentional violent crime. Driver's license registries allow law enforcement personnel easy access to information about whether or not a driver is permitted to operate a vehicle and any restrictions that driver may have. Likewise, motor vehicle registries help law enforcement personnel detect property crimes. Automobile theft is a significant criminal problem. Moreover, vehicles abandoned in accidents can be traced to their owners through the registries.
Obviously, law enforcement personnel use a wide variety of government databases in their daily crime prevention, detection, and investigation duties. Without these databases, officers in different jurisdictions would have no way of knowing when or if a person was wanted for a crime in another database. Even more...
Though none of the databases is flawless, they all provide benefits to law enforcement personnel. Moreover, it is clear that government databases will continue to evolve, in order to provide law enforcement with greater and greater levels of information.
References
Federal Bureau of Investigation (unk). National Incident-Based Reporting System. Retrieved from http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/faqs.htm
Hitt, S. (2000, July). NCIC 2000- National Crime Information Center. Retrieved March 13,
2011 from Find Articles website: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2194/is_7_69/ai_64994525/
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data. (2010). National Crime Victim Survey resource guide. Retrieved March 12, 2011 from the University of Michigan website: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/NACJD/NCVS/
Pike, J. (2008, June 2). National Crime Information Center. Retrieved March 13, 2011, from Federation of American Scientists website: http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fbi/is/ncic.htm
