  Mystery
This week: Fingerprints through time Edited by: The Milkman  
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Fingerprints
Everyone who writes a mystery story, no matter what length, wants to leave something with the reader. But it is the reader who actually leaves something behind when reading your work. For this newsletter I'm not talking about the dead skin cells, the loose hair, the dandruff flakes or other body fluids except for the oils on your skin that highlights the ridges and valleys of your fingerprints.
We've had grooves, arches, dots on our fingers, hands and feet since the beginning of time but these patterns first caught the interest of a University of Bologna professor Marcello Malpighi in the late 1600's. Since there were no shows like CSI, Law & Order or Forensic Files his interest faded and there was no further interest for over a hundred years.
In the mid 1800's a British chief administrative officer in Bengal, India named Sir William James Herschel started fingerprinting to invoke honesty among the Indian natives. The thought behind this; not that distrust is a core value, was to place a fingerprint beside his signature would reduce a person's inclination for deceitfulness because of the intimacy associated of touching the paper. This practice would also spark the idea of fingerprinting for identification.
In 1870's Dr. Henry Faulds, the British Surgeon-Superintendent of Tsukiji Hospital in Tokyo, Japan realized the importance of using fingerprints for crime-solving as well as personal identification. He also introduced the use of a classification system and the forms he used for recording inked impressions.
These first "fingerprint" cards weren't the only medium used to capture the studies of our unique fingertip patterns in the 1800's. Mark Twain wrote of identifying a murderer by his fingerprints, and Charles Darwin's cousin, Sir Francis Galton, wrote the book "Finger Prints" in 1892. This book established the individuality and permanence of fingerprints. Also in 1892, Argentina claimed the first use of a fingerprint to identify a murderer. 1893 "Pudd'nhead Wilson" written by Mark Twain amazed readers with its accounts of murder, court trials and the use of fingerprint identification.
The early 1900's England and Wales began the first fingerprinting for criminal identification and the New York Civil Service Commission started printing their job applicants soon after. Also, around that time the New York state prison system began using fingerprints for the identification of criminals and they officially adopted the fingerprint system in 1903.
In 1904 the U.S. Penitentiary in Leavenworth, KS established its own fingerprint bureau and began to exchange fingerprint information with other law enforcement agencies and police officers.
The years from 1905 to 1918 an increasing number of law enforcement agencies including our armed forces started using and sharing fingerprint information.
1918 was when Edmond Locard wrote that if 12 points (Galton's Details) were the same between two fingerprints, it would suffice as a positive identification. This is where the often quoted (12 points) originated. Be aware though, there is "NO" required number of points necessary for an identification. Some countries have set their own standards which do not include a minimum number of points, but not in the United States.
An act of congress established the Identification Division of the F.B.I in 1924. The National Bureau and Leavenworth consolidated to form the center of the F.B.I. fingerprint files.
By 1946 the F.B.I had processed 100 million fingerprint cards in manually maintained files and 200 million by 1971.
Computers are now used but as of 2005 fingerprint cards were still widely used.
In this article I gave your an history of fingerprinting. Will any of this information help you in your next mystery, only you and your keyboard know the answer to that. Your fingerprints on your computer will tell a forensic fingerprint examiner which buttons you repeatedly press.
Next month I will further discuss fingerprints and how they are used... in your daily life.
Sources:
Police Procedure & Investigation A Guide for Writers by Lee Lofland 2007
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Mystery: January 26, 2011 Issue [#4202]
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