SECTION 1. Sections 12-1-5, 12-1-6, 12-1-8, 12-1-9 and 12-1-10 of the General Laws in Chapter 12-1 entitled "Identification and Apprehension of Criminals" are hereby repealed.

12-1-5. Office space of division. -- The division shall have suitable offices in the Providence county courthouse assigned to it by the director of administration.

12-1-6. Appropriations for division. -- The general assembly shall annually appropriate any sum it deems necessary for the salaries of the chief and the chief's assistants and for the expenses of maintaining the division in accordance with the provisions of this chapter.

12-1-8. Methods of identification. -- The department may use any of the following systems of identification: The Bertillon, the fingerprint system, and any system of measurement that may be adopted by law in the various penal institutions of the state.

12-1-9. Assistance to state and local police in fingerprint identification -- Enforcement powers -- Cooperation with federal bureau and other states. -- Whenever requested by the superintendent of state police or by any superintendent or chief of police or town sergeant of any city or town, the attorney general may assist police officials as a criminal investigator in all criminal investigations involving identification by fingerprints. The attorney general shall have and may exercise in any part of the state with regard to the enforcement of the criminal laws, all powers of sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, town sergeants, chiefs of police, members of the division of state police, police officers, and constables. The attorney general may send or cause to be sent to any state or national bureau of identification established for the purpose of exchanging information, according to the method of identification by fingerprint, or to any police department, whether within or without the state, the descriptions of any person who may have been fingerprinted in this state.

12-1-10. Duty of police officials to furnish fingerprints and stolen property lists. -- (a) It shall be the duty of the superintendent of state police and of the superintendents or chiefs of police or town sergeants, referred to in this section as police officials, to promptly furnish the attorney general with fingerprints and descriptions of all persons arrested, who, in the judgment of the police officials:

(1) Are wanted for serious crimes, or who are fugitives from justice;

(2) Possess at the time of arrest goods or property reasonably believed by the police officials to have been stolen;

(3) (i) Possess burglar outfits or tools or keys or explosives reasonably believed to have been used or to be used for unlawful purposes; or

(ii) Possess infernal machines, bombs, or other contrivances, in whole or in part, reasonably believed by the police officials to have been used or to be used for unlawful purposes;

(4) Carry concealed firearms or other deadly weapons reasonably believed to be carried for unlawful purposes; or

(5) Possess inks, dye, paper, or other articles necessary in the making of counterfeit bank notes, or in the alteration of bank notes; or dies, molds, or other articles necessary in the making of counterfeit money, and reasonably believed to have been used or to be used by the persons for these unlawful purposes.

(b) This section is not intended to include violators of city or town ordinances or of persons arrested for similar minor offenses. It is also the duty of the police officials to furnish the department with daily copies of the reports received by their respective offices of lost, stolen, found, pledged, or pawned property.

SECTION 2. Chapter 12-1 of the General Laws entitled "Identification and Apprehension of Criminals" is hereby amended by adding thereto the following sections:

12-1-8.1. Method of identification. -- The bureau of criminal identification in the department of attorney general shall use fingerprints as the exclusive method of positive identification.

12-1-9.1. Duty of police officials to furnish fingerprints. -- It shall be the duty of the superintendent of the state police and the chiefs of police or town sergeants to furnish the bureau of criminal identification of the department of attorney general within ten (10) days of arrest, the fingerprints and physical description of all persons arrested and all persons who are wanted for serious crimes or who are fugitives from justice. This section is not intended to include violations of city or town ordinances or of persons arrested for minor offenses.

12-1-10.1. Photographs and descriptive information. -- In the case of every offense for which an indictment has been returned or an information filed, the person for which an indictment or information has been filed, if not previously fingerprinted by the arresting police department for the offense, shall report to the bureau of criminal identification of the department of attorney general to submit to fingerprinting, a photograph and the collection of descriptive information. In the event the individual indicted or informed against has not previously been fingerprinted for the offense is in the custody of the department of corrections or detained at a similar detention facility, the investigating police department shall obtain fingerprints and a photograph from the individual charged and submit a set of said fingerprints to the department of attorney general's bureau of criminal identification within twenty-one (21) days of arraignment on the indictment or information.

SECTION 3. This act shall take effect upon passage.