Forensic Science: Fingerprints

For over a century fingerprints have been one of the most used tools of forensic science. Fingerprints have been used to identify criminals of small crimes

All over the world and as far as many people can remember, fingerprints have been used as a symbol of truth and justice in the forensics domain. The art of fingerprinting has been seen as a closure to many major crimes that have put many people in prison. However, in his article “Do Fingerprints Lie?” Michael Specter examines that fingerprinting has given rise to many questions as of the late 20th century. Fingerprints have been taken for granted, almost like money, which in this century, people believe is the best item to be handed to us. People tend to take what they hear, and just go with it without research or background knowledge. This practice has not been challenged as many concepts should. Specter brings in a solid argument with a lot of knowledge to support his claims and factual evidence to set his article with high credibility. While Specter builds a strong argument, he fails to consider how fingerprints have improved the forensic process.

Aging fingerprints determine their relevance in a forensic timeline. Fingerprints deposited at the approximate time of a crime would be substantial in a/the forensic case. As it could have been connected to the suspect, witness or even the victim. Conversely, fingerprints may be irrelevant if the time of deposition didn’t correspond with the time of the crime.

After giving much thought to the many areas covered by Forensics Sciences, the main criteria to which my choices were narrowed and ultimately the final decision of Ballistics and/or Fingerprint Analysis was based on by the complexity of the job, need for a keen eye, and my wanting to be challenged in a career. I have no doubt that there are other areas that would be just if not more challenging however interest is a another key element in the making such a life changing and difficult decision.

Fingerprints are detailed, difficult to alter, and permanent over the life of a person, which makes them suitable as a long-term identifier of an individual. They also can be used to identify people who are deceased in the aftermath of a crime. The recovery of fingerprints from a scene is an important part of forensics in identifying a possible suspect. Blood is often found at various types of crime scenes, such as homicide, assault, rape, robbery and burglary. Blood type can be an identifying factor to assist investigators to narrow the search for a suspect. With DNA typing technologies, an individual bloodstain can now be used to identify an individual of a crime or a suspect. Blood spatter can also be used to identify which hand a person used during a stabbing, the direction of a shot and even the distance of the shot from the victim.

While other areas of forensic science may be called into question, the science of fingerprinting is safe. It’s an inviolable science with a long history. We all know that no two people in the world share the same fingerprints. And the FBI Crime Lab is the grand master when it comes to analyzing fingerprint evidence, right?

It is the observation of a specific sequence of base pairs that allows us to identify a single individual from the residual DNA. The DNA database enables us to compare traces of DNA from the crime scene to individuals who already have a criminal record and whose genetic data are stored in the database. The technique does not allow the identification of individuals not on the database, but it can be used to find serial perpetrators and to exclude the innocent (Morris, 2013).

“Fingerprint recognition is one of the divorce inference using the impressions made by the minute ridge formations or patterns found on the fingertips. No two people have exactly the same arrangement of the ridge patterns, and the remaining patterns of any one individual unchanged. Fingerprints infallible provide a means of personal identification. Other personal characteristics may change, but not fingerprints”. (1)

For many years, fingerprints have played an invaluable role in criminal, and investigative work. There has been trials of various systems of identification such as branding, tattooing, photography, and measurement. These systems, simply have not produced complete, desirable results. Only fingerprinting, out of all previous methods of identification, have proven most infallible. The Supreme Court of California in a 1946 ruling stated, “Fingerprints are the strongest evidence to prove the identity of a person.” Fingerprints are considered to be Direct Evidence. They establish the identity or non-identity of two sets of inked impressions. They can also establish the identity of a latent print recovered from the

The first reason why I believe fingerprinting is necessary for our legal system is the unquestionable scientific facts that validate the authenticity of fingerprint analysis. As pointed out in the debate, there is one in 64 billion chance that two people may have the same fingerprints. For this reason, scientists have concluded that no two people have the same fingerprints based on this statistical law. This illustrates that fingerprinting is effective in implicating the right criminals to the scene of a crime, and identifying suspects in court. (Watson)

In earlier civilizations, they used fingerprinting for business trades, and also used branding and maiming for identity. To do this they compressed their finger in the clay tablets. They also did this in ancient China, but used clay seals instead of clay tablets. These were the earliest use of fingerprints found. In 1880 researchers found a fingerprint marking on pottery, and realized that in ancient times they also used fingerprints in similar ways like we do it today (U.S. Marshals Service).

Fingerprints offer a solid method for an individual's identification. This is the basis for clarification of fingerprints and has since replaced techniques for identifying people who are reluctant to admit previous arrests. (Moore, 2017) This essay will discuss the historical backdrop of fingerprints as a science and timeline, the progression, and accomplishments.

Every time somebody touches something, they leave behind a unique signature that forever links them to that object. This link is their fingerprints, which are unique to every person, for no two people have the same set, not even family members or identical twins. Palms and toes also leave prints behind, but these are far less commonly found during crime scene investigations. Therefore, fingerprints provide an identification process that is applicable to background checks, biometric security, mass disaster identification, and most importantly, crime scene investigations. Fingerprints are so differentiated because they are made up of distinct patterns of ridges and furrows on the fingers. The ridges are the “raised” portions of the prints, and the furrows are the “recessed” portions. This perceived uniqueness has led some people to falsely accept fingerprint analysis as absolute scientific fact. Although overall fingerprints are reliable, there are definitely situations where their accuracy can come into question.

One huge technological breakthrough that has directly impacted the field of homicide investigation is DNA fingerprinting. DNA fingerprinting can be very helpful, especially in rape and murder cases. It was first used in 1984 to solve a double rape and murder case of two girls, three years apart. The first victim was Lynda Mann, a fifteen-year-old girl from Narborough, England. She was walking from one friend 's house to another, when she noticed someone standing by a lamppost close to the entrance gate of the Carlton Hayes psychiatric hospital. (McCrery, x) Lynda’s father called the police when she wasn’t home by 1:30am, but because she had not been missing for long the police were not very worried. The next morning, a hospital orderly on his way to work stumbled across what he thought to be a partially clothed mannequin, but was actually the rigid, pale body of Lynda Mann. While at the time there was not the technology to completely solve the case, “the technology that was to prove decisive in solving it [the case] was developed only a few miles from Narborough, at the University of Leicester, roughly a year after Lynda’s tragic death.” (McCrery, xi) On September 10, 1984, a biochemist by the name of Dr. Alec Jeffreys was examining an X-ray film image of a DNA experiment. While examining it, he noticed “that the DNA of different members of his technician’s family showed both

Fingerprinting is used for many things, such as a robbery, or at a crime scene. Fingerprints were first discovered in 1870 by Alphonse Bertillon, who was a French anthropologist. In 1892, Juan Vucetich had made the first criminal report using a fingerprint. In 1905 America used fingerprints for identification. When America started using fingerprints for identification they had to match the fingerprints manually when needed. When technology was able to enter fingerprints, and match them with anonymous ones, it helped identification immensely.