The History of fingerprint Identification

Fingerprints offer an infallible means of personal identification. That is the essential explanation for their having supplanted other methods of establishing the identities of criminals reluctant to admit previous arrests.

• Has served all governments worldwide during the past 100 years to provide accurate identification of criminals. No two fingerprints have ever been found alike in many billions of human and automated computer comparisons. Fingerprints are the very basis for criminal history foundation at every police agency on earth.

• Established the first forensic professional organization, the International Association for Identification (IAI), in 1915.
  

• Established the first professional certification program for forensic scientists, the IAI’s Certified Latent Print Examiner program (in 1977), issuing certification to those meeting stringent criteria and revoking certification for serious errors such as erroneous identifications.
  

• Remains the most commonly used forensic evidence worldwide – in most jurisdictions fingerprint examination cases match or outnumber all other forensic examination casework combined.
  

• Continues to expand as the premier method for identifying persons, with tens of thousands of persons added to fingerprint repositories daily in America alone – far outdistancing similar databases in growth.

• Worldwide, fingerprints harvested from crime “scenes lead to more suspects and generate more evidence in court than all other forensic techniques combined. 2″
  

Other visible human characteristics change – fingerprints do not. In earlier civilizations, branding and even maiming were used to mark the criminal for what he was. The thief was deprived of the hand which committed the thievery. The Romans employed the tattoo needle to identify and prevent desertion of mercenary soldiers.

The basic fundamentals in the science of fingerprint identification are permanence and individuality.
Permanence: Fingerprint ridges are formed during the third to fourth month of fetal development. These ridges consist of individual characteristics called ridge endings, bifurcations, dots and many ridge shape variances. The unit relationship of individual characteristics does not naturally change throughout life… until decomposition after death. After formation, an infant’s growing fingerprint ridges are much like drawing a face on a balloon with a ball-point pen and then inflating the balloon to see the same face expand uniformly in all directions. Unnatural changes to fingerprint ridges include deep cuts or injuries penetrating all layers of the epidermis and some diseases such as leprosy.

Permanent scars, disease damage, and temporary changes such as paper cuts appear as jagged edges and sometimes “puckered” ridge detail in opposition to smooth flowing natural formations. Warts can come and go, but generally push apart an area of friction ridges and can disappear completely when the wart is gone because they are not a part of the friction ridge structure. Look at a wart with a magnifying glass and you will notice that the friction ridges “surround” the wart. Senile atrophy of friction skin due to old age causes the ridges to often almost flatten, causing fingerprints with many creases (creases are also unique but not always permanent) and poorly defined ridges. Oddly, newborn infants also often have more creases than clearly defined ridge detail in their barefoot prints. The creases are unique, but change relatively rapidly and often disappear as the infant grows. The best chance of seeing friction skin ridges on newborn infant footprints is to look carefully with a magnifying glass on and near the big toe.

Individuality: In the over 140 years that fingerprints have been routinely compared worldwide, no two areas of friction skin on any two persons (including identical twins) have been found to contain the same individual characteristics in the same unit relationship. This means that in general, any area of friction skin that you can cover with a dime (and often with just a pencil eraser) on your fingers, palms, or soles of your feet will contain sufficient individual characteristics in a unique unit relationship to enable identification. Recent studies comparing the fingerprints of cloned monkeys showed that they, just like identical twin humans, have completely different fingerprints. When doctors state that twins have the same fingerprints, they are referring to the class characteristics of the general ridge flow, called the fingerprint pattern. These loop, arch and whorl ridge flow patterns are not the individual characteristics used to positively identify persons. Before modern computerized systems, fingerprint classification was essential to enable manual filing and retrieval of fingerprints in large repositories.

For many years experts testified that no two fingerprints in the hundreds of millions of fingerprint cards on file in America had ever been found to be alike. This was misleading in that large fingerprint files were for the first 110 years of police usage separated into small file categories by class characteristics such as:

• sex.
• age.
• presence of scars.
• presence of whorl, loop and arch formations in various fingers.
• ridge counts and tracings between different pattern focal points (deltas and cores)

Thus, for example, at the FBI’s former Identification Division with over 200 million fingerprint cards, no individual card and no individual fingerprint was ever completely compared against all the other fingerprints on file. In such manual filing systems fingerprints were compared only with corresponding fingerprint cards possessing the same class characteristics.

This all changed with the advent of AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems), and many agencies have now compared thousands of individual fingerprints (such as fingertip impressions from crime scenes) against every fingerprint in the entire repository. None have been found to have the same individual characteristics in the same unit relationship.

Math is the only exact science. However, fingerprint identification lends itself well to mathematical validation. As of September 2002, at least seven state AFIS sites make fingerprint card to fingerprint card positive identifications without human intervention. Latent prints (finger, palm and foot) from crime scenes are not positively identified by computers primarily because of background interference (dirt, scratches on items/surfaces touched, etc.) and the relatively poor clarity of some crime scene latent prints.

When DNA evolved as a science, the term “DNA fingerprinting” was adopted to lend credibility to that science’s newcomer status which is in its infancy compared with the empirical validation of fingerprint identification worldwide. DNA analysis as commonly practiced in forensic science laboratories cannot differentiate between identical twins, but fingerprints have always been able to differentiate identical twins.

The two basic ideas scientists believe about fingerprints are:

• Fingerprints never change. Small ridges form on a person’s hands and feet before they are born and do not change for as long as the person lives.
• No two fingerprints are alike. The ridges on the hands and feet of all persons have three characteristics (ridge endings, birfurcations and dots) which appear in combinations that are never repeated on the hands or feet of any two persons. A ridge ending is simply the end of a ridge (also known as an ending ridge). A bifurcation is a Y-shaped split of one ridge into two. A dot is a very short ridge that looks like a “dot.”

The basic fundamentals in the science of fingerprint identification are permanence and individuality.
Beyond the John Q. Public info you can read by clicking here, you should know that a “positive identification” is not necessarily a “positive identification”. The science of friction ridge identification leaves no room for error when professional guidelines are followed in its application… but, in any field of human endeavor (including simple math addition, subtraction, etc.) there will always be oversights.

Every competent fingerprint expert will have an identification verified. Procedurally, at most agencies it is not an identification until it is verified by another competent expert. Most state and federal level crime labs will not even inform you that a fingerprint match occurred until after the “identification” has been verified. An exception to this rule is fingerprint card to fingerprint card identifications made in some Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) computers. Latent print “matching” scores at AFIS sites are normally evaluated and “verified” by two human experts before the “identification” is reported.

Never base an identification on just the matching fingerprint classification. A matching fingerprint classification (Henry classification, NCIC classification, etc.) means only that the person printed belongs to the group of persons whose prints all have that same classification… just like sorting out a large number of persons based on sex, age, height, weight, eye color, etc. The identification should be verified by a well qualified fingerprint expert based on a comparison of the individual characteristics in the fingerprints… not based on the classification. In some agencies the inked print to inked print identifications are automatically reported after computerized matching in an AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System) with a minimum matching “score” set so high that human intervention is not necessary. Low score matches in an AFIS are checked and verified by humans.

Do NOT have an arrest warrant issued based on a fingerprint “match” unless you are certain of the credentials of the expert. Unless an ID tech at your agency was an expert before they attended schools such as the one-week FBI classification course and the one-week FBI latent print techniques course, they did NOT leave those schools as experts (the FBI issues certificates of attendance… not certificates of successful course completion). Although American law accepts them as experts with such little training, they are not. In court they only have to have more knowledge about fingerprints than the average man on the street to be legally qualified as an expert.

Most fingerprint experts train for at least two or three years under the watchful eye of experienced Latent Print Examiners before they are allowed to work unsupervised on latent prints from crime scenes. Self-training can equip an ID tech at a small department with the same two weeks of experience, 50 times over. Also, a deputy who looks at latent prints a couple of hours per month for ten years does NOT have ten years experience… he has the equivalent of a few weeks of crime lab type experience… and it is poor quality experience if his work was not reviewed. How much is he missing if he only takes his “idents” to someone else for verification. He may only be identifying the prints a chimp could match and missing more difficult impressions.

Although there are very competent fingerprint experts in America who hold no certification, over nine hundred have attained the title of Certified Latent Print Examiners from the International Association for Identification (IAI) after completion of stringent testing (most years less than 50% of those persons taking the six hour exam have passed). In recent years the IAI has simplified the classification portion of the test and there is now no reason for any latent print examiner to avoid testing with excuses such as, “I only work with latent fingerprints and don’t do filing so I can’t be tested on classification.” Suspect their expertise if they use such excuses. A part time expert with poor quality training will not be able to pass the examination.

THE HISTORY OF FINGERPRINTS

Updated 30 July 2010

Why Fingerprint Identification?

Fingerprints offer an infallible means of personal identification. That is the essential explanation for their having supplanted other methods of establishing the identities of criminals reluctant to admit previous arrests. 1

The science of fingerprint Identification stands out among all other forensic sciences for many reasons, including the following:

• Has served all governments worldwide during the past 100 years to provide accurate identification of criminals. No two fingerprints have ever been found alike in many billions of human and automated computer comparisons. Fingerprints are the very basis for criminal history foundation at every police agency on earth.
• Established the first forensic professional organization, the International Association for Identification (IAI), in 1915.
• Established the first professional certification program for forensic scientists, the IAI’s Certified Latent Print Examiner program (in 1977), issuing certification to those meeting stringent criteria and revoking certification for serious errors such as erroneous identifications.
• Remains the most commonly used forensic evidence worldwide – in most jurisdictions fingerprint examination cases match or outnumber all other forensic examination casework combined.
• Continues to expand as the premier method for identifying persons, with tens of thousands of persons added to fingerprint repositories daily in America alone – far outdistancing similar databases in growth.
• Worldwide, fingerprints harvested from crime “scenes lead to more suspects and generate more evidence in court than all other forensic techniques combined. 2”

Other visible human characteristics change – fingerprints do not. In earlier civilizations, branding and even maiming were used to mark the criminal for what he was. The thief was deprived of the hand which committed the thievery. The Romans employed the tattoo needle to identify and prevent desertion of mercenary soldiers.

Before the mid-1800s, law enforcement officers with extraordinary visual memories, so-called “camera eyes,” identified previously arrested offenders by sight. Photography lessened the burden on memory but was not the answer to the criminal identification problem. Personal appearances change.

Around 1870, French anthropologist Alphonse Bertillon devised a system to measure and record the dimensions of certain bony parts of the body. These measurements were reduced to a formula which, theoretically, would apply only to one person and would not change during his/her adult life.

The Bertillon System was generally accepted for thirty years. But it never recovered from the events of 1903, when a man named Will West was sentenced to the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas. It was discovered that there was already a prisoner at the penitentiary at the time, whose Bertillon measurements were nearly the same, and his name was William West.

Upon investigation, there were indeed two men who looked exactly alike. Their names were Will and William West respectively. Their Bertillon measurements were close enough to identify them as the same person. However, a fingerprint comparison quickly and correctly identified them as two different people. (Per prison records discovered later, the West men were apparently identical twin brothers and each had a record of correspondence with the same immediate family relatives.)

Prehistoric

Picture writing of a hand with ridge patterns was discovered in Nova Scotia. In ancient Babylon, fingerprints were used on clay tablets for business transactions. In ancient China, thumb prints were found on clay seals.

In 14th century Persia, various official government papers had fingerprints (impressions), and one government official, a doctor, observed that no two fingerprints were exactly alike.

Malpighi

1686 – Malpighi

In 1686, Marcello Malpighi, a professor of anatomy at the University of Bologna, noted in his treatise; ridges, spirals and loops in fingerprints. He made no mention of their value as a tool for individual identification. A layer of skin was named after him; “Malpighi” layer, which is approximately 1.8mm thick.

1823 – Purkinje

In 1823, John Evangelist Purkinje, an anatomy professor at the University of Breslau, published his thesis discussing 9 fingerprint patterns, but he too made no mention of the value of fingerprints for personal identification.

Herschel

Herschel’s fingerprints recorded over a period of 57 years

1858 – Hershel

The English first began using fingerprints in July of 1858, when Sir William James Herschel, Chief Magistrate of the Hooghly district in Jungipoor, India, first used fingerprints on native contracts. On a whim, and without thought toward personal identification, Herschel had Rajyadhar Konai, a local businessman, impress his hand print on a contract.

The idea was merely “… to frighten [him] out of all thought of repudiating his signature.” The native was suitably impressed, and Herschel made a habit of requiring palm prints–and later, simply the prints of the right Index and Middle fingers–on every contract made with the locals. Personal contact with the document, they believed, made the contract more binding than if they simply signed it. Thus, the first wide-scale, modern-day use of fingerprints was predicated, not upon scientific evidence, but upon superstitious beliefs.

As his fingerprint collection grew, however, Herschel began to note that the inked impressions could, indeed, prove or disprove identity. While his experience with fingerprinting was admittedly limited, Sir William Herschel’s private conviction that all fingerprints were unique to the individual, as well as permanent throughout that individual’s life, inspired him to expand their use.

1863 – Coulier

Professor Paul-Jean Coulier, of Val-de-Grâce in Paris, publishes his observations that (latent) fingerprints can be developed on paper by iodine fuming, explains how to preserve (fix) such developed impressions and mentions the potential for identifying suspects’ fingerprints by use of a magnifying glass. 3, 4

Faulds

1880 – Faulds – First Latent Print Identification

During the 1870’s, Dr. Henry Faulds, the British Surgeon-Superintendent of Tsukiji Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, took up the study of “skin-furrows” after noticing finger marks on specimens of “prehistoric” pottery. A learned and industrious man, Dr. Faulds not only recognized the importance of fingerprints as a means of identification, but devised a method of classification as well.

In 1880, Faulds forwarded an explanation of his classification system and a sample of the forms he had designed for recording inked impressions, to Sir Charles Darwin. Darwin, in advanced age and ill health, informed Dr. Faulds that he could be of no assistance to him, but promised to pass the materials on to his cousin, Francis Galton.

Also in 1880, Dr. Henry Faulds published an article in the Scientific Journal, “Nature” (nature). He discussed fingerprints as a means of personal identification, and the use of printers ink as a method for obtaining such fingerprints. He is also credited with the first fingerprint identification of a greasy fingerprint left on an alcohol bottle.

1882 – Thompson

In 1882, Gilbert Thompson of the U.S. Geological Survey in New Mexico, used his own thumb print on a document to prevent forgery. This is the first known use of fingerprints in the United States. Click the image below to see a larger image of an 1882 receipt issued by Gilbert Thompson to “Lying Bob” in the amount of 75 dollars.