Edmond Locard

Edmond Locard was born on December 1877 in France. Living and studying in Lyon, France, Locard came a long way with his discoveries. In Lyon, he studied medicine and law and later started his career of being a criminologist. Criminology deals with an area of sociology that focuses on the study of crimes and their causes, effects, and social impact. Therefore, Locard’s job was to analyze a case and find the motives of why the crime was committed and to try and stop it from happening in the future. In 1908, Locard started his world trave and, two years later, created a crime laboratory in Lyon. It was finally completed in 1912 and soon he started his own writings. There were several men that Edmond encountered during his time. First was Alexandre Lacassagne who was his advisor and mentor; Lacassagne was the father of modern forensic medicine. During his study, Locard worked with Alphonse Bertillon in 1908 whom was the father of anthropometry. Anthropometry is the scientific study of the measurements and proportions of the human body. Locard became the founder of the International Academy of Criminalistics along with Professors Marc

He was very dedicated about precise measurements and the idea of using photography which led the combination of both that we use today. He helped develop this usage of photography with a scale to allow investigators to document the crime scenes. Before photographs, investigators used to sketch the crime scene. In forensics class, we learned that part of the steps in todays crime investigations involves the usage of both techniques. Locard was influenced by his instructor and formed the basis of forensics science (Locard’s Exchange Principle. However, it was entirely Locard whom observed that criminals could be associated with particular locations or items. He realized that whenever someone comes into contact with an object or another person, a cross transfer of physical evidence