FINGERPRINTS

"...the majority of all crime is committed by habitual criminals who have been arrested or imprisoned before...their fingerprints are on file, and...a single fingerprint left anywhere about the scene of a crime may enable the experts to tell just who committed the crime."
~  T. Dickerson Cooke, The Blue Book of Crime, 1953.

 

 

Fingerprints begin to develop when we are an eleven week fetus.  The ridges of our prints remain unchanging throughout our lives. Not one set of fingerprints in the world are alike.  Because of this, fingerprints can be used as a definite clue in an investigation. 

 

There is a deposit of moisture, salt and oil on your skin and the ridges of your finger tips.  When we touch things, the oil on our fingers leaves a print mark in the pattern of the ridges of our finger prints.

 

Finger tips can be classified into four categories:

Arch – a wave or a hill where the ridges enter one side of the print, rise in the middle and exit on the opposite side of the print.

Loop – a loop where the ridges enter one side of the print, go up to form a loop, then the ridges exit on the same side of the print.

Whorl – a spiral shape where the pattern circles around like a whirl pool.

Composite – is a combination of patterns such as the whorl and arch, a loop and an arch, or a whorl and a loop.

 

When police identify fingerprints, they first look at the pattern of the print (loop, arch, whorl or composite).  Once they have a matching type, they look for unique features of a print. In order for the fingerprints to be a match, they must have several ridge characteristics in common. 

 

There are four ridge characteristics:

Bifurcation – one ridge splits to form two ridges and rejoin to one ridge again, forming a shape like a lake.

Ridge Endings – a ridge ends.

Island – a very short ridge in a print pattern is not connected to any other ridge, much like an island floating by itself.

Lake – a ridge in the shape of a circle/oval.

 

 

 

 

FINGERPRINT LINKS

(CLICK ON THE    )

 Fingerprint Identification: Craft or Science?

What Are Fingerprints?

Fingerprinting

Fingerprint Patterns

Taking Legible Fingerprints 

Do Fingerprints Lie?

 

 

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