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The History of Fingerprints
Updated 18 May 2008
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.
The science of fingerprint Identification stands
out among all other forensic sciences for many reasons, including the
following:
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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.
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Established the first forensic professional organization, the
International Association for Identification (IAI), in 1915.
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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.
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Remains the most commonly used forensic evidence worldwide
- in most jurisdictions fingerprint examination cases match or outnumber
all other forensic examination casework combined.
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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.
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Outperforms DNA and all other human identification systems
to identify more murderers, rapists and other serious offenders (fingerprints
solve ten times more unknown suspect cases than DNA in most jurisdictions).
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, a French anthropologist 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.
This Bertillon System, named after its inventor,
Alphonse Bertillon, 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.
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Malpighi
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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.
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1823 - Purkinje
In 1823, John Evangelist Purkinje, a professor
of anatomy 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.
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Herschel
Herschel's fingerprints recorded over a period of 57 years
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1858 - Hershel
The English first began using
fingerprints in July of 1858, when Sir William Herschel, Chief Magistrate
of the Hooghly district in Jungipoor, India, first used fingerprints
on native contracts. On a whim, and with no 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 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.
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Faulds
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1880 - Faulds
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. 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.
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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.
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1882 - Bertillon
Alphonse Bertillon, a Clerk in the Prefecture of Police of at Paris,
France, devised a system of classification, known as Anthropometry or the Bertillon
System, using measurements
of parts of the body. Bertillon's system included measurements
such as head length, head width, length of the middle finger, length
of the left foot; and length of the forearm from the elbow to the
tip of the middle finger.
In 1888 Bertillon was made Chief of the newly created Department
of Judicial Identity where he used anthropometry as the main means of identification.
He later introduced Fingerprints but relegated them to a secondary role
in the category of special marks.
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Twain (Clemens)
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1883 - Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens)
In Mark Twain's book, "Life on
the Mississippi", a murderer was identified by the use of fingerprint identification.
In a later book by Mark Twain, "Pudd'n Head Wilson", there was a dramatic
court trial on fingerprint identification. A more recent movie was made
from this book. |
Galton
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1888 - Galton
Sir Francis Galton, a British anthropologist
and a cousin of Charles Darwin, began his observations of fingerprints
as a means of identification in the 1880's. |
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1891 - Vucetich
Juan Vucetich, an Argentine Police Official,
began the first fingerprint files based on Galton pattern types. At first,
Vucetich included the Bertillon System with the files.
Right Thumb Impression and Signature
of Juan Vucetich
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1892 - Vucetich & Galton
Juan Vucetich made the first criminal fingerprint
identification in 1892. He was able to identify Francis Rojas, a woman
who murdered her two sons and cut her own throat in an attempt to place
blame on another. Her bloody print was left on a door post, proving
her identity as the murderer.
Francis Rojas' Inked Fingerprints
Sir Francis Galton published his book,
"Fingerprints", establishing the individuality and permanence of fingerprints.
The book included the first classification system for fingerprints.
Galton's primary interest in fingerprints
was as an aid in determining heredity and racial background. While he
soon discovered that fingerprints offered no firm clues to an individual's
intelligence or genetic history, he was able to scientifically prove what
Herschel and Faulds already suspected: that fingerprints do not change
over the course of an individual's lifetime, and that no two fingerprints
are exactly the same. According to his calculations, the odds of two individual
fingerprints being the same were 1 in 64 billion.
Galton identified the characteristics by which
fingerprints can be identified. These same characteristics (minutia) are
basically still in use today, and are often referred to as Galton's Details. |
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1897 - Haque & Bose
On 12 June 1897, the Council
of the Governor General of India approved a committee report that fingerprints
should be used for classification of criminal records. Later that
year, the Calcutta (now Kolkata) Anthropometric Bureau became the world's
first Fingerprint Bureau. Working in the Calcutta Anthropometric
Bureau (before it became the Fingerprint Bureau) were Azizul Haque and
Hem Chandra Bose. Haque and Bose are the two Indian fingerprint
experts credited with primary development of the Henry System of fingerprint
classification (named for their supervisor, Edward Richard Henry).
The Henry classification system is still used in all English-speaking countries
(primarily as the manual filing system for accessing paper
archive files that have not been scanned and
computerized). |
Henry
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1900 - Henry
The United Kingdom Home Secretary
Office conducted an inquiry
into "Identification of Criminals by Measurement and Fingerprints." Mr.
Edward Richard Henry (later Sir E.R. Henry) appeared before the inquiry committee
to explain the system published in his recent book "The Classification
and Use of Fingerprints." The committee recommended adoption of
fingerprinting as a replacement for the relatively inaccurate Bertillon
system of anthropometric measurement, which only partially relied on
fingerprints for identification.
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1901 - Henry
The Fingerprint
Branch at New Scotland Yard (London Metropolitan Police) was created in
July 1901 using the Henry System of Classification.
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1902
First systematic use of fingerprints
in the U.S. by the New York Civil Service Commission for testing. Dr.
Henry P. DeForrest pioneers U.S. fingerprinting.
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1903
The New York State Prison system
began the first systematic use of fingerprints in U.S. for criminals.
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1904
The use of fingerprints began in
Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas, and the St. Louis Police
Department. They were assisted by a Sergeant from Scotland Yard who had
been on duty at the St. Louis World's Fair Exposition guarding the British
Display. Sometime after the St. Louis World's Fair, the International
Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) created America's first national
fingerprint repository, called the National Bureau of Criminal Identification.
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1905
U.S. Army begins using fingerprints.
U.S. Department of Justice forms the Bureau of Criminal Identification
in Washington, DC to provide a centralized reference collection of fingerprint
cards.
Two years later the U.S. Navy started, and was joined the next
year by the Marine Corp. During the next 25 years more and more law enforcement
agencies join in the use of fingerprints as a means of personal identification.
Many of these agencies began sending copies of their fingerprint cards
to the National Bureau of Criminal Identification, which was established
by the International Association of Police Chiefs. |
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1907
U.S. Navy begins using fingerprints.
U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Criminal Identification
moves to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary where it is staffed at least
partially by inmates. |
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1908
U.S. Marine Corps begins using
fingerprints. |
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1915
Inspector
Harry H. Caldwell of the Oakland, California Police Department's Bureau of
Identification wrote numerous letters to "Criminal Identification Operators"
in August 1915, asking them to meet in Oakland for the purpose of forming
an organization to further the aims of the identification profession. In October
1915, a group of twenty-two identification personnel met and initiated the
"International Association for Criminal Identification" In 1918, the organization
was renamed the International
Association for Identification (IAI) due to the volume of non-criminal identification
work performed by members. Sir Francis Galton's right
index finger appears in the IAI logo. The IAI's official publication
is the Journal of Forensic Identification.
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1918
Edmond Locard wrote that if 12 points (Galton's
Details) were the same between two fingerprints, it would suffice as
a positive identification. Locard's 12 points seems to have been
based on an unscientific "improvement" over the eleven anthropometric measurements
(arm length, height, etc.) used to "identify" criminals before the adoption
of fingerprints.
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1924
In 1924, an act of congress established
the Identification Division of the FBI. The IACP's National Bureau of
Criminal Identification and the US Justice Department's Bureau of Criminal
Identification consolidated to form the nucleus of the FBI fingerprint
files. |
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1946
By 1946, the FBI had processed 100 million
fingerprint cards in manually maintained files; and by 1971, 200 million
cards.
With the introduction of automated fingerprint
identification system (AFIS) technology, the files were split into computerized
criminal files and manually maintained civil files. Many of the
manual files were duplicates though, the records actually represented
somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 30 million criminals, and an unknown
number of individuals in the civil files.
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The Fingerprint Society
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1974
In 1974,
four employees of the Hertfordshire (United Kingdom) Fingerprint Bureau contacted
fingerprint experts throughout the UK and began organization of that country's
first professional fingerprint organization, the National Society of Fingerprint
Officers. The organization initially consisted of only UK experts,
but quickly expanded to international scope and was renamed The Fingerprint Society
in 1977. F.F.S. used behind a fingerprint expert's name indicates
they are recognized as a Fellow of the Fingerprint Society. The Society
hosts annual educational conferences with speakers and delegates attending
from many countries.
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1977
At New Orleans, Louisiana on 1 August 1977,
delegates to the 62nd Annual Conference of the International Association
for Identification (IAI) voted to establish the world's first certification
program for fingerprint experts. Since 1977, the IAI's Latent Print Certification Board has proficiency
tested thousands of applicants, and periodically proficiency tests all IAI
Certified Latent Print Examiners (CLPEs). IAI CLPE status is considered
by many identification professionals to be a measurement of excellence.
During the past three decades, CLPE status has become a prerequisite
for journeyman fingerprint expert positions in many US state and federal government
forensic laboratories.
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2007
The largest AFIS repository in America
is operated by the Department of Homeland Security's US Visit Program,
containing over 74 million persons' fingerprints, primarily in the form
of two-finger records. The index finger records are non-compliant with FBI and Interpol
standards, but sufficient for positive identification and valuable
for forensics because index fingers are the most commonly identified
crime scene fingerprints.
The US Visit Program is migrating from two flat (not rolled) fingerprints
to ten flat fingerprints during 2007. "Fast capture" research funded
by the US government will enable implementation of ten "rolled print equivalent"
fingerprint recording (within 15 seconds per person fingerprinted) in future
years.
The FBI's Integrated AFIS (IAFIS) in Clarksburg,
WV has more than 54 million individual computerized fingerprint records
for known criminals. Old paper fingerprint cards for the civil
files are still manually maintained in a warehouse facility (rented shopping
center space) in Fairmont, WV, though most enlisted military service member
fingerprint cards received after 1990, and all military-related fingerprint
cards received after 19 May 2000, have now been computerized and can be
searched internally by the FBI. In the "Next Generation" of IAFIS,
the FBI may make civil file AFIS searches available to US law enforcement
agencies through remote interface. The FBI is also planning to expand
their automated identification activities to include other
biometrics such as palm, iris and face.
All US states and many large cities have their
own AFIS databases, each with a subset of fingerprint records that is not
stored in any other database. Thus, law enforcement fingerprint interface
standards are very important to enable sharing records and reciprocal searches
for identifying criminals. |
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* Much of the above wording is credited to
the writing of Greg Moore, from his previous fingerprint history page
at http://www.brawleyonline.com/consult/history.htm
(no longer there). Also, David
L. von Minden, Ph.D helped correct typos his students kept cutting
and pasting into their homework.
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