Fingerprints

• Author: D. P. Lyle
• Pages: 243-259

Fingerprints 243

CHAPTER 13

FINGERPRINTS

Take a close look at your fingertips and you will see very f ine lines that

curve and circle and arch. T hese lines are composed of narrow val leys

called grooves and hills known as friction ridges. These ridges create

friction, which allows you to pick up a glass or turn a doorknob. They are

also the pattern you see when you view an inked finger print, and it is this

that makes them so useful for criminal investigators.

When the world was poorly populated and people existed in small

nomadic communities of thirty or forty individuals, everyone knew every-

one else. If you wanted to know who Joe was, ask anyone and they could

point him out. But, as populations grew, settled into ever-expanding cities,

and developed systems of government, identifying others became more dif-

ficult. This fueled a search for a reliable method for identifying people. And

since most people could not read, write, or sign their name, proving identity

for legal matters was very diff icult.

Fingerprints, along with DNA, are the most powerful methods for

establishing identity. Though identical twins share the same DNA, even

they have distinct fingerprints. Fingerprints are commonly left behind by

criminals a nd in most cases are easily collect ed, which makes them ideal

crime scene clues. They are easily stored and ca n be converted to digital

data so that large databases c an be created and shared ac ross jurisdictions.

244 Fingerprints

Though a well-accepted standard now, our recognition of the individuality

of fingerprints didn’t happen overnight.

The two most important characteristics of any method of identification

are that it be absolutely individual and that it remains unchanged through-

out the person’s life. Fingerprints fit these requirements perfectly. But it

took over 3,000 years and the astute observations of many scientists and

criminal investigators before this tool became an ac cepted standard.

The History of Fingerprints

• Prehistory: Early pottery makers “signed” their works with an

impressed finger or thumbprint.

• 1000 BC: The Chinese used fingerprints to “sign” legal documents

and criminal confessions. It is unclear whether this was a ceremo-

nial practice or a method of personal identity.

• Ca. 1000 AD: The Roman attorney Qu intilian exonerated a blind

man accused of murdering his own mother by showing that a bloody

palm print found at the scene had been placed by someone else in an

attempt to frame the unfortunate man.

• 1685: Marcello Malpighi, professor of anatomy at the University of

Bologna, Italy, first recognized the “var ying ridges and patterns”

on human fingertips and used the term s “loops” and “whorls” to

describe these patterns.

• 1823: Johannes Purkinje of the University of Breslau, Poland,

devised the first system for classify ing fingerprints when he listed

nine basic patterns and laid down rules for their individual classif i-

cation. His work is the basis for today’s classification systems.

• 1858: In order to prevent fraud in contracts and pension distribu-

tions, Sir William Herschel, an English civil servant stationed in

Bengal, India, required that the natives sign c ontracts with a hand

imprint. He also kept records of his own prints and showed that they

did not change over a 50-year period, a necessa ry discovery to the

development of fingerprints as a forensic tool.

• 1880: Henry Faulds, a physician and surgeon at Tsukiji Hospital

in Tokyo, Japan, wrote that fingerprints could be used for personal

identification and suggested that they might be useful for identify-