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Detectives arrived on the scene after complaints of screaming heard by a neighbor down the street. Besides the blood painted walls and drenched sheets, there lay a lump of human parts on the bed. What they found was the body of a prostitute that had been bound and beheaded with her liver placed between her lacerated legs. Recognized to be human only by the eyes that were missing from her skull, she had fallen victim to a psychotic eradicator. Jack the Ripper, known as one of the most historically significant serial killers of all time, left his victims bodies most unidentifiable, but not the latent fingerprints he left behind that later convicted him. Forensic science used in criminal justice has recently been revolutionized with new DNA technology, but fingerprinting is still the most valid and effective form of identification used in law enforcement today.
Going back in the time of ancient Babylon, fingerprints and ridge patterns were used on clay tablets for business transactions and governmental procedures. By the 14 th century, the fact that no two prints were alike was becoming more noticeable, thus the history of the fingerprint began (Von Minden 1). Noting the ridges, spirals, and loops in fingerprints, Marcello Malpighi, a professor of anatomy at the University of Bologna, made no declaration to the value of personal identification, but began to point out the differences in fingerprint patterns in 1686. Then, in 1823, a professor of anatomy at the University of Breslau, John Evangelist Purkinji, discussed nine fingerprint patterns in a published thesis, but still did not take notice to the individuality of each print (Von Minden 1). It wasnt until 1856 that Englishman and Chief Magistrate, Sir William Hershel, used fingerprints on native documents. Doing so was...
to frighten [him] out of all the thought of repudiating his signature. After gathering many prints, Hershel took notice to the fact that all the prints were unique and could prove identity from all those he made transactions with (Von Minden 2). Dr. Henry Faulds, the British Surgeon-Superintendent of Tsuki hi Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, shared his studies with Charles Darwin in 1880, but Darwin, who was rather ill at the time, could be of no service to Faulds studies. Eight years later, Sir Francis Galton, a British anthropologist and Darwin's cousin, began to study Faulds articles on fingerprint classification. Galton began to concentrate on linking fingerprints to genetic history and intelligence, but had no luck.
Scientifically proving that fingerprints never changed during ones lifetime, Galton stated that the odds of two prints to be exactly the same were 1 in 64 billion (Von Minden 2). Finally, in 1901, Sir Edward Richard Henry revised Galton's classification system and started the Henry Classification System which is still used to this day (Von Minden 3). Throughout the beginning of the 1900 s, fingerprinting began its journey into existence of the U. S. legal system and military branches. By 1971, the FBI had a rough 200 million prints that were manually maintained by the government.
Since 1999, the FBI has stopped using paper fingerprint cards (except in some criminal files) and will eventually have transferred all paper prints to a digital print on computers. Though fingerprints have been used for thousands of years, the present systems of classification have only been utilized in the past 100 years. (Von Minden 4). Famously, in 1891, Juan Vucetich, an Argentine Police Official, was the first to identify a criminal with their own fingerprint. After taking the lives of her two sons, then slitting her own throat, the perpetrator, known as Rojas, had left her bloody prints on a doorknob, which correctly identified her as the murderer. Although she tried to blame the slaying on another by setting up the executions, her prints couldnt hide her deadly secret (Von Minden 5). Another case, that went down in history was that of a Will and William West.
They looked nearly identical and had matching Bertillon measurements. The Bertillon System, created by Alphonse Bertillon, turned out to be a disaster due to the fact that it wasnt accurate enough to tell the difference between similar people. His system was solely based on comparing the size of body parts, such as the skull, legs, feet, etc. (Von Minden 5). Investigation took place after Will Wests sentencing in 1903 in Leavenworth, Kansas. It was found that they were identical twins with shockingly similar prints.
With closer examination of their prints, authorities found that the two men were only thought to have the same identity because of their similarities in Bertillon measurements. Needless to say, this case was the downfall of The Bertillon System (Von Minden 5). Overlapping the time of the anthropology based Bertillon System, then replacing it, the Henry Classification System was first adopted by Scotland Yard in 1901 (Rosenweig 3). The 12 -point system, a system that suffices a positive identification if twelve points on a print match another, is based off the Henry Classification System. Although there is no requirement in the United States to have a certain amount of matching points, other countries have their own standards that necessitate a bare minimum of matches (SWGFAST 49).
The two main types of classification that are used internationally, are the Henry Classification and the NCIC Classification systems. The NCIC Classification is much easier to comprehend, therefore more widely used, especially in criminal cases. The Henry Classification is mainly used for the manual filing of fingerprint cards. An FCIC code consists of a twenty character code. Each finger has two characters to represent its classification. Radial loops, plain arches, and whorls are the three basic fingerprint patterns in FCIC Classification.
There are four different types of whorls: plain whorls, central pocket whorls, double loop whorls, and accidental whorls, two different kinda of loops: radial and ulnar, and two types of arches: tented and plain. Being the most common of the five, the loop is classified by only having one delta. A delta looks like three sides of a triangle, and must have a curving line that passes through it. Arches are the only patterns that do not include deltas because arches only consist of one pattern, while a loop, for example, consists of a pattern that it is adjacent to a delta of some sort. Ulnar and radial loops are the simplest to understand. If the loop is arching toward the ulnar bone, its classified as an ulnar loop If the loop is arching toward the radial bone, then its classified as the radial loop.
Ulnar loops are the most commonly found patterns in the world. Arches, which do not include deltas, are rather easy to classify as well. A tented arch has a significant upward thrust of the triangular shape, while the plain arch is not as defined. Whorls must have two or more deltas. Plain whorls are circular patterns that have ridges (raised skin), not furrows (lowered skin), making up most of the pattern in a circular motion. On the other hand, the central pocket whorl is notably different with the bifurcation that differentiates the two types of patterns.
A bifurcation is the point at which one friction ridge divides into two friction ridges. Basically, the circular shape divides at some point, causing it to look like somewhat of a tadpole with a round body and tail. Looking like a yin-yang sign, the double loop whorls explain themselves. They consist of two circular patterns instead of one like all the other three whorl patterns. Lastly, the accidental whorl has three deltas or more that classifies it to be an accident (Chang 2). FCIC Codes for the fingers are as follows: 01 - 49 Ulnar Loops 51 - 99 Radial Loops AA Plain Arch TT Tented Arch PI Plain Whorl, Inner Tracing PO Plain Whorl, Outer Tracing PM Plain Whorl, Meet Tracing CO Central Pocket Whorl, Outer Tracing CI Central Pocket Whorl, Inner Tracing CM Central Pocket Whorl, Meet Tracing DO Double Whorl- Outer Tracing DI Double Whorl, Inner Tracing DM Double Whorl, Meet Tracing XI Accidental Whorl, Inner Tracing XO Accidental Whorl, Outer Tracing XM Accidental Whorl, Meet Tracing XX Amputation (Chang 5) The code moves from the right thumb to the pinky, then the left thumb to pinky.
Loop codes have numbers to represent each ridge count of the pattern, while all other patterns consist of letters, not digits. Fingerprint ridges are formed during the third to fourth month of fetal development, and consist of individual characteristics called ridge endings, bifurcations, dots, and other variations in ridge shape... as a child grows, fingerprint ridges inflate and expand uniformly in all directions, including cuts or injuries, as well as some diseases like leprosy (Rosenweig 1) With this statement in mind, it can be surmised that even a clone or identical twin will have a different print than its lookalike. When taking a print from a crime scene, the easiest to preserve is the latent print. Its caused by oily discharges of the hands and are usually visible to the human eye. Just recently, canon create (similar to super glue) has begun to replace the invention of fingerprint powder.
When canon create is heated, the fumes evaporate onto porous surfaces, permanently preserving latent prints. Those that are not visible, are held under ultra-violet lights, then transferred to contrasting surfaces, such as black powder or white paper, or vice versa. With the twelve-point system in mind, imperatively how accurately it works as an identification system, no other system has proved to be as precise with all of the statistics that are available. One in 64 billion fingerprints have been concluded to have the same twelve-point identities. It takes this kind of advanced structure known as fingerprinting to be so exact, whereas DNA can easily be swayed in strand configuration.
The DNA revolution has definitely opened the door for forensic science, but fingerprinting has been the key since the beginning.
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