Pangasinan PNP equipped to identify suspects faster
THIS province’s police force has acquired the digital facial composite sketch that enables it to easily and quickly identify crime suspects.
P/Col. Redrico Maranan, provincial police director, presented to local newsmen Tuesday the new equipment and application that employs algorithms to pick out details about a person’s face from a photo or video to form a template.
“If we can identify his physical features, comes next is the identity of his/her name which becomes our lead in conducting an investigation, especially the face of the suspect” he said.
Once the face is established, other details follow, he said.
The computer sketch uses facial composite drawing to identify unknown suspects by comparing their photos to images stored in databases or in rogue’s gallery and used mainly to reconstruct the suspects’ face in the hope of identifying them.
He said the digital system is more accurate and more reliable in identifying the suspect compared to the traditional pencil and paper method because it produces 90-100 percent accuracy of description of a witness.
“In five minutes or less, the digital facial composite sketch is done compared to the traditional paper and pencil sketch that takes three hours or more to be drawn,” he added.
The system will be cascaded down to the city and municipal police stations in a month’s time and a three-day seminar with police investigators will be conducted to familiarize themselves with the system.
With the aid of this system, it is expected to further improved crime solution efficiency of Pangasinan Provincial Police Office, Maranan said.
He said aided by this new system, police stations should be able to arrest suspects immediately after a crime has been committed.
He, however, clarified that other elements in solving a crime will consider the complainant, witness and evidence, as the digital facial composite sketch is just an aid.
“This system will soon be implemented in the 48 police stations in the province. We will provide computers with higher megapixels and investigators will be trained on how to use the system. We target to finish all these in a month,” he said. (Philstar Wire Service/Helen Martin)
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