The Usage Of Human Fingerprints Essay

scientific law enforcement in his creation of a mass fingerprint file in 1926 and the

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

Lee, H. (2001). Advances in Fingerprint Technology, Second Edition, 2nd Edition. Retrieved January 26, 2015, from Vital Source: http://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781420041347

For the past several decades, ninhydrin has been used in the development of fingerprints from surfaces. The fingerprints revealed by ninhydrin have been used to compare against other known fingerprints, whether from the person of interest or a database, which can lead to a match on a victim or a suspect on a case. But what about the fingerprints that do not have a match in a database? Can that print be of any use to forensic scientists? In the journal article, “New Horizons for Ninhydrin: Colorimetric Determination of Gender from Fingerprints” the researchers attempt to determine if a fingerprint can yield more than just a picture that can be used for comparison.

samples of an individual’s fingerprint’s can be lifted from a crime scene. The breakthrough of

Then William Herschel began to use fingerprints in his role as Chief Magistrate in 1958. In 1877, he imposed the fingerprints as authentication authorities. In 1880, he wrote an article “skin furrow of the hand”, where he sanctioned the use of fingerprints as a method of signature and identification. In the same year, the individuality of fingerprints was suggested for the first time scientifically by Henry Fauld.

Though Hershel, Faulds, Galton and others set the stage in methods to indicate fingerprints should have been used for identification there was still controversy around the science. With the advances of technology, we now have a better understanding of why fingerprints have only been identified to a single individual. They are unique and permanent. Embryology finds six weeks in utero formations of early notching for what will become fingers starts. By week seven, webbing of the finger is almost gone and volar pads start to form. During week ten through twelve, initial formation of epidermal ridges begin. Primary ridges begin at the apex of the volar pads, tip of the finger and just above the first joint. Secondary ridges start to form by week sixteen and stop the formation of primary ridges. By twenty-four weeks ridge formation has completely finished. For over one hundred years friction ridge impressions have been only known to relate back to only one source thus resulting its broad usage in law enforcement, banking, government buildings for identification purposes and etc.

According to Merriam- Webster Dictionary; an impression or mark made on a surface by a person's fingertip, especially as used for identifying individuals from the unique pattern of whorls and lines. One of the most important parts of a forensic investigation is fingerprinting. As fingerprints are unique to each individual, they serve as a highly accurate way for law enforcement agencies to identify a suspect, as well as potentially prove their guilt or innocence. This paper will talk about how a cold case was solved by a fingerprint, the procedures, reasons why the case was not solved at the time of the crime and the results.

According to Jain Anil, fingerprint-based identification is the oldest method which has been successfully used in numerous applications and though Bertillon’s anthropometry raised many valid points in forensic science, it was discarded and replaced by the fingerprint identification method after Bertillon’s death 1914.

At the time, no one had ever attempted to admit fingerprint evidence to court. but this time, in the People v. Jennings case, the Supreme Court of Illinois upheld the fingerprint evidence (Chicago Daily Tribune, 1911). Captain Michael Evans, head of the identification bureau, “swore positively that the print on the fence was that of Jennings” (Chicago Daily Tribune, 1911). Ultimately, the court convicted Jennings of murder and robbery. His words indicated that people in the early twentieth century began to think about fingerprints as credible and reliable means of identificatiofryn of a person. Then, in 1915, Frederick Kuhne wrote The Fingerprint Instructor, and the Scientific American Company published The Fingerprint Instructor in 1916 (Houck & Siegel). It had been written for the use of the Bureau of Criminal Identification, part Police Department of the City of New York. The Jennings case and the first authoritative publication on fingerprinting show that the United States government officials’ and criminalists’ growing faith on a fingerprints ability to identify a person with great

The use of fingerprinting as a means of identification was born out of the need of law enforcement officials to have permanent records that could determine if a convict had been previously arrested or imprisoned. Before the advent of fingerprinting, law enforcement used a number of different methods to try to accomplish this. Ancient civilizations would tattoo or physically maim prisoners. In more recent times, daguerreotyping (that is, photographing) was used, but proved to be less than reliable, because people had the ability to dramatically alter their appearance (Skopitz). As a result, this method too, became obsolete with the discovery of fingerprinting, an absolutely infallible

Doctor Henry Faulds published a piece on the use of fingerprinting in England 1880 and then two years later Gilbert Thompson use thumbprints to avoid fraud in the United States on check. In Francis Galton had created a classification system for fingerprints working on a past principle from Sir William Herschel. During the years of 1901 and 1920 many countries started to use fingerprints and in America in 1924 in America, the FBI had launched the identification division. In general, it has been coming a long way but eventually science and technology had evolved far enough for fingerprinting to become an important forensic science tool. To the point where now there are databases that contain over millions of fingerprint images that are available for comparison and

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.

As the unrelenting demand for smartphones continues to increase, many technology companies are looking for ways of making such devices easier, faster, and more user friendly. Many smartphones are equipped with fingerprint readers, allowing the user to access their phones securely and quickly without having to type in their pin or passcode. This prevents users from having to remember dozens of random passphrases that, in theory, a hacker could potentially guess and be granted access into. However, this poses a serious question - How secure is fingerprint authentication and why should consumers trust that this technology will keep their information safe? Similarly,

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.