Fingerprints: Then and Now

The history of fingerprint identification dates back all the way to the 200s BC. Ancient Chinese history shows details of using handprints as evidence in investigations of burglaries all the way back to 221-206 BC. Fingerprinting has been a major component in identification for crime scene investigations and law enforcement for centuries.

History

In July of 1858, the English began using fingerprints when Chief Magistrate of the Hooghly district in Jungipoor, India, James Herschel came up with the idea of using whole handprints instead of signatures. He took the hand of businessman Rajyadhar Konai, and pressed his hand onto a contract. Herschel claimed the idea was a mere tactic to “frighten him out of all thoughts of repudiating his signature”, and later became a way of signing contracts- only this time just using the index and middle fingers. However, at this time, the prints were not used as a scientific means of identification. It would be a while before the fingerprint collection grew, and then Herschel realized they could be used to prove or disprove identities.

Several decades later, the first use of fingerprints occurred in the United States when Gilbert Thompson used a thumbprint in an attempt to prevent forgery on a document in 1882. Also in the 1880s were the observations of fingerprints as identification by British anthropologist Sir Francis Galton, and only a couple of years later, police official Juan Vucetich started the first fingerprint files based on Francis Galton’s observations.

A big step in the use of fingerprinting happened in 1892 when a woman by the name of Francis Rojas murdered her two children. In an attempt to put the blame on another person, she cut her own throat, leaving a bloody print on a door ...

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...d in fingerprinting today. Law enforcement and the criminal justice system rely on the use of fingerprint identification and the help of IAFIS daily; without the technological advances like the creation of IAFIS, the manual processing and identification of prints by the thousands, or even millions, would be virtually impossible.

Having the ability to identify types of prints and surfaces, and the corresponding techniques to develop the prints, has helped crime scene investigators identify criminals and victims of scenes, and aided in the prosecution of defendants in the criminal justice system. Although the history and techniques go far beyond what was discussed in these few pages, it is important as a law enforcement officer or investigator to understand the very basics of how fingerprint identification began, and the simple techniques used to develop them today.