Ohio Identification
Officers Association
History
on Fingerprints
Written
by Kimberly Skopitz - © 2002 Pagewise
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In the
early days of police work, one of the great plagues of the professional judge
was not being able to prove that a suspect, and likely convict, was a repeat
offender. Society then as now frowned on the career criminal and wanted
a way to be able to punish him (or her) accordingly, with a stiffer
sentence. Different countries took different approaches to this
problem: France took the method of branding their criminals with the
fleur-di-lis symbol, as
an indication that this person had offended the Crown before; Rome sometimes
tattooed criminals; other countries went the route of removing the hand of a
thief (although those that had merely suffered an accident might be confused
with having a criminal past). Beginning in the 1850s, some
areas began photographing (or daguerrotyping)
criminals as they went into prison. This method became more popular in
the 1880s, with the advent of the Kodak camera, which was quicker and easier
to use. However, photographs were still not foolproof--people can
drastically change their appearance, and what they do not do, time may.
Nonetheless, police spent a great deal of time studying "Rogues
Galleries"--thick books of photographs of known criminals in the hopes
of being able to identify them in the case of similar crimes occurring near
them. (There was apparently very little faith that a criminal would not
return to his or her illicit ways). Other methods included the Bertillon System, developed by a French
anthropologist (Alphonse Bertillon) who posited that there were specific body
measurements that would not change; an example would be the length of the
femur. This was a very popular method, despite the obvious problems of
obtaining measurements. The system received a severe blow in 1903 in
Leavenworth, Kansas. While taking the measurements of one Will West,
officials found that he was indeed a repeat offender. Mr. West mightily
protested this charge, and upon further examination of the records, the
jailers discovered that they already had one William West in their custody,
with the same Bertillon measurements. (There is still some confusion as
to whether these men were related; some believe they may have been twins,
others believe it was merely a fluke.) Fortunately, however, another
system of identification was developing--fingerprinting. Fingerprints
had been used as source of identification since the T'ang
Dynasty in China, and in the 8th century Japan--a thumbprint could suffice
for a signature on legal documents. The first crime solved using
fingerprints is sometimes stated to be a murder case that occurred in ancient
Rome, where a bloody handprint was later found to be the match for the
killer. Western awareness of the
possibilities of fingerprinting first came to notice in 1684 with a lecture
given by British doctor Nehemiah Grew, who spoke on the ridge patterns of
fingerprints. Two years later, Italian physician Marcello Malpighi
wrote a treatise describing the ridged patterns (these would later be
referred to as the "Malphigi" skin layer
in his honor). In 1823 Johannes Evangelist Purkinje wrote his doctoral
thesis for the University of Breslaw that divided
fingerprints into nine different types. In 1858, however, fingerprinting
found a firm believer in William James Herschel. It all started
innocently enough while he was an employee of the East India Company.
Herschel wanted a good way to seal a contract with a Bengali firm, and
settled on using a handprint on the contract. Two years later, Herschel
became a magistrate at Nuddea. One of his
official duties was to make sure that not only did natives of the area
receive the pensions that were due them, but to prevent as much fraud as
possible. High illiteracy rates, and therefore the inability to get a
signature, drastically raised the potential for fraud. Remembering the
success of the handprint, Herschel began requiring pensioners to use their
fingerprint as a form of signature in order to receive the money due them.
Fraud avoided, and a passion born. In 1877, Herschel requested
permission to try his system in a small prison in Bengal, but was refused. Meanwhile, Dr. Henry Faulds a Scottish physician working as the Surgeon
Superintendent of Tsukiji Hospital in Japan, was
also studying fingerprints, having become interested after seeing some in
ancient pottery work. In October 1880, he wrote a letter to the journal
Nature describing his work with fingerprints. William Herschel
then wrote a letter in response in the next issue of the journal, and a feud
ensued between these two pioneers. Dr. Faulds
continued his work, at one point writing Charles Darwin for his advice.
Darwin instead provided Faulds with a contact to
Sir Francis Galton. Darwin's cousin and noted anthropologist Sir
Frances Galton then began work on the problem of fingerprints as a means of
identification, and of classification. In 1892 he published Fingerprints,
the first book on the subject. In it he stated his belief that
fingerprints were unique and unchanging, making them ideal for
identification. He warned however, that they would not provide heredity
or racial clues (Caucasian fingerprints could not be immediately identified
as such, in other words, nor would one know that the suspect was a member of
the Smith family). His basic method of classification is still in use. The use of fingerprints during
this time was somewhat stagnant. In 1893 the British Home Office set up
a committee to determine the best criminal identification system for Scotland
Yard to use. After consideration, they recommended the Bertillon
system, but to also use fingerprinting as a complimentary means of
identification. How well this worked may be seen in that Faulds offered to begin a fingerprint division at Scotland
Yard at his own expense three years later (in 1896), but was rejected. In the United States, interest
was growing. Gilbert Thompson, a geologist in New Mexico used his
fingerprints on documents in 1882 to prevent forgery; thinking of Herschel's
work, perhaps. At any rate, Thompson thus becomes the first person to
use fingerprinting in the United States. Mark Twain also used
fingerprints, but as fictional devices in Life on the Mississippi
(1883) and Pudd'n Head Wilson (1894). Meanwhile, Argentine detective
Juan Vucetich began his own work on fingerprinting
and classification. By 1892, he solved the first criminal case to
depend on the matching of fingerprints--the case of a mother who murdered her
two sons. By 1912, Vucetich's method became
the standard in South America. Great Britain and most of Europe
accepted the Galton-Henry system, with the exception of France, Belgium, and
Egypt, who used a combination of two systems. France also held on to
anthropometry for the first half of the 20th century. Edward Henry finished his system
of identification and retrieval of fingerprints in 1896, to great
success. The following year the Indian government made fingerprinting
the official means of keeping track of criminals. In 1901, Henry
becomes the head of Scotland Yard's Criminal Investigation Division.
The four basic divisions that Henry creates are: Arches, Loops, Whorls,
and Composites. Every fingerprint will fall into one of these four
groups, narrowing down potential matches. From this point on, progress is
swift, with the notable exceptions of France, Belgium and Egypt, all of whom
will continue to use both the Bertillon method and fingerprinting. The
New York Civil Service began testing fingerprinting in 1902. In March,
1903 the New York State Prison system begins fingerprinting criminals (in
Ossining Prison, better known as Sing Sing), and in
1904 the federal prison at Leavenworth begins to do the same (this was as a
direct result of the Will/William West case). Then the US Army begins
using them in 1905, followed by the Navy in 1906. The Marines lag
behind a bit, beginning fingerprinting in 1907. In 1908, P.A. Flak of
the Library Bureau Company in Chicago, designed the basic form still in use
today--an 8-inch square of medium weight cardboard, with the fingerprints on
it in printer's ink. Printer's ink is preferred because it rarely
smudges and dries quickly. The International Association for
Chiefs of Police begins keeping extensive fingerprint files, which, in 1924
they will send to the newly created federal Identification Division of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation of the Justice Department. Nine years
later they will have 5 million cards, and by 1946, 10 million. Nine
year old actress Margaret O'Brien becomes number 10 million on a tour of
the FBI on January 31, 1946. After eight years of testing, in
1980 the FBI created a computerized Criminal Fingerprint File. In 1983
the FBI created the National Crime Information Center, to allow for the
dissemination of information about criminals between the federal and local
governments. As part of this, the FBI standardized the methods of
fingerprint classification, eradicating local differences in classification,
and making national retrieval easier. By 1989, all fingerprints match
requests were done on the computer, and the response time cut from 14 days to
1 day. Fingerprinting and identification
are still key to solving criminal cases, despite the
technological advances that are making DNA testing more reliable and easy to
obtain. It is possible that they may one day become obsolete, as new
methods supersede them, but for the foreseeable future, the ends of the
fingers will continue to point the way. I believe that with all the
advances we have seen in our discipline and all the challenges that have been
overcome with proving the Science, we will have Fingerprints and
Identifications around for many years to come. I don’t see DNA as
competitive to Fingerprints, but as an additional way to do identifications. Damion E. Pasternak OIO Historian/SAA |