New York Consolidated Laws, Correction Law - COR § 618. Duties of state correctional institutions, penitentiaries, county jails and reformatories

1. It shall also be the duty of the commissioner to continue to make or have impressions made of the finger and thumbprints of all incarcerated individuals in any of the institutions under the jurisdiction of the department;  in his or her discretion, to cause said incarcerated individuals to be measured and described;  and to cause to be obtained and recorded, so far as possible, modus operandi statements of said incarcerated individuals.  The commissioner shall cause such impressions and measurements of persons confined in state correctional institutions to be made by a person or persons in the official service of the state in conformity with the system now in use in the division of criminal justice services, and shall prescribe rules and regulations for obtaining and recording such modus operandi statements, and for keeping accurate records of such impressions, measurements and statements, in the offices of such institutions.

2. It is hereby made the duty of the officials having charge of all the penitentiaries and county jails in the state to cause incarcerated individuals confined therein under sentence for any crime to be measured and described and the fingerprint impressions of such incarcerated individuals to be made according to the rules and methods prescribed by the commissioner of criminal justice services.  It shall also be the duty of such officials in charge of such institutions to procure so far as possible modus operandi statements from all such prisoners.  And it shall be the duty of such officials to cause duplicate records of such measurements, impressions and statements to be made, two copies to be transmitted to the division of criminal justice services within twenty-four hours following the time of the reception of such incarcerated individuals in said institutions.

3. There shall continue to be maintained in the various state prisons, penitentiaries, reformatories and other penal institutions of the state during the time that prisoners are therein confined complete individual case histories of each prisoner so confined.