Mercer County Regional Council of Governments has applied for a grant to create regional booking centers for the processing of criminal defendants.

The centers could eliminate some of the staff labor and the amount of time required to send and receive information from a state computer data base.

The bulk of the cost would be paid for by a $165,075 Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency grant, which has been applied for.

COG already has received a $44,000 Shared Municipal Services Grant from the state Department of Community and Economic Development, and the county will put in $22,025 as a local match.

The grant would be used to buy a "super server" computer to link the Shenango Valley Regional Lock-Up in Farrell and the now-forming Greenville Regional Lock-Up with 10 participating police departments.

COG also wants to buy three LiveScan Digital Fingerprint Units and three Commonwealth Photo Imaging Units. They would be placed at the lock-ups and Mercer County Jail.

While some police departments photograph people they've arrested with digital cameras, others use Polaroid cameras. The standard for taking fingerprints is using ink and fingerprint cards.

"The new technology will do away with the ink," said James DeCapua, executive director of COG.

The equipment would make the lock-ups and the jail regional booking centers, and police departments could use the equipment to perform the booking tasks each department now does at its own station, DeCapua said.

Police departments would be able to digitally submit information on people they have arrested to a statewide data base, which would call up information on arrest warrants, DeCapua said.

Currently, this information is available only through Mercer County 911.

Fingerprints now are mailed and departments have to wait for them to be processed.

Eventually, the state data base could expand to include other states.