Fingerprint Analysis Research Paper

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Abstract

This paper discusses the origins of fingerprinting and the usage of fingerprint analysis in the field of forensics. It traces the history of the practice from the 19th century on into the 20th and discusses the methods used to obtain fingerprints from a crime scene. It also examines some of the problems of fingerprint analysis and how it is not a foolproof manner of identification and never has been. It shows why fingerprint analysis should be used as a tool and not as an end-all-be-all means of identification for investigators conducting a criminal investigation. The numerous cases of mistaken identity based upon faulty forensics applied in the case of fingerprint analysis are sufficient to indicate the merit of this claim.

Keywords: fingerprint analysis, forensics fingerprinting, crime scene investigation

Introduction

The unique characteristics and contours of the fingerprint were first noted by 17th century anatomist Marcello Malpighi, who highlighted the spirals and ridges of the fingerprint and after whom the Malpighi layer is named. Some two hundred years later, fingerprinting as a way of identification was practiced by an English administrator in India. It was not long before fingerprinting became a primary way of identifying and databasing information on a person’s unique characteristics. Fingerprint analysis in the field of forensics was a staple of criminal justice by the middle of the 20th century, the FBI being in possession of 100 million fingerprint cards, which could be read by the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, which kept the files on digital drives (Hawthorne, 2008). This paper will provide background information on the history of fingerprint analysis, how the process is conducted today, and major controversies surrounding the practice in the field of forensics.

Historical Background

Fingerprint analysis has been a way of identifying individuals since the 19th century, when a British Administrator in India, Sir William Herschel, required civil contractors to provide both signatures and fingerprints (Herschel, 1916). By 1880, Dr. Henry Faulds had published an article on fingerprinting in the journal Nature (Reid, 2003). Two years later in France, Alphonse Bertillion devised the Bertillion System of classifying identification measurements of persons based on their body measurements, such as height and length—a system that would be used for classification purposes until fingerprinting would prove a better option. In 1891, the system of fingerprinting criminals was put into practice in Argentina, and in 1892, Sir Francis Galton published a book in England on how fingerprints are unique to each and every person (a claim that has never been substantially verified by scholarship). In 1901, Sir Edward Henry, in India, instituted the world’s first systematic classification of fingerprints, which would eventually be adopted by the United Kingdom and dispersed through the rest of the world. In 1903, the need for fingerprinting as a formal classification of identification was seen when at Leavenworth prison, two inmates by the same name and same Bertillion measurements were incarcerated. Fingerprint identification was seen as the best method of distinguishing individuals—and two years later, the U.S. military was using fingerprints of soldiers for that exact purpose. Law enforcement agencies soon followed, and the first fingerprint card was put in use in 1908 in the U.S. Zabell (2005) has, however, noted that while reliability of fingerprint identification and verification is attainable in fingerprint analysis, validity is still a concept that the field has yet to attain with consistency.

Process

As skin produces an oily residue that can be left behind on physical surfaces, the imprint of fingerprints can essentially be left behind on any solid surface as well. However, prints can also be left behind when any residue, such as blood, ink, or dirt is on the fingers when they come into contact with a surface.

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Fingerprint analysts can retrieve fingerprints from soft surfaces, such as soap or wax; they can retrieve them from flat, hard surfaces, such as glass, wood, walls, and so on—whether the prints are patent or latent (visible or invisible to the eye). Latent prints can be retrieved from a range of surfaces, from paper and cloth to metal and plastic. To recover latent prints, fingerprint powder is required, and the analyst must dust for prints. The dust adheres to the oils deposited by the fingers when they come into contact with a surface, thus rendering the print patent, which allows it then to be copied for databasing and indexing to see if…

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…that a better examination of the fingerprint evidence showed the truth.

This goes to show that no matter what type of evidence is used in forensics, there will always be the risk of eager prosecutors using faulty forensics to land a conviction. The problem, here, is not so much in the forensics process as in the problem of who is entrusted with completing that process and how the process is manipulated to convict a person. In any field of forensics there is room for abuses, and fingerprint analysis is no exception. In the future, individuals in the field may use computerized, algorithmic searches to help find matches—but even this is no guarantee that a similarity is meaningful. As the National Academy of Sciences warns, fingerprint analysis is a tool that investigators should use—not to convict—but rather to help in terms of who or who may not be included as a suspect.

Conclusion

Fingerprint analysis goes as far back in time as the 17th century, when the ridges of the fingerprint were first examined by an anatomist in Italy. Since then, the fingerprint has become a source of particular appeal for forensics analysts: the appeal is based on the understanding that no two fingerprints are alike. Fingerprint analysis has been helpful in many cases over the decades since its inception in law enforcement in the 20th century. However, it has never been a foolproof practice, nor does it have a 100% pass rate. There have been many instances in which the fingerprints lifted from one scene were used to convict a man who was not there. There have been cases where prints that seemed to match were used to imprison persons who could not have been said otherwise to have any reason for being suspected. Fingerprinting analysis is based on the match of small ridges and whorls, and the difficulty often lies in the complexity of the ridges and whorls in the human finger and in the difficulty of turning up a fine print for analysis. The better the print, the more accurate the reading and matching can be—but in the real world, turning up fine prints, even with all the technological power that is available to….....

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