Cj 3170 - Fingerprint Individuality

Daniel Goodman

10/28/2015

CJ 3170

Fingerprint Individuality

The use of fingerprints to help determine an individual’s connection with a particular crime has been used since the early 1900’s. Forensic experts have made statements in court testifying that a fingerprint from the suspect matches’ ones found at a crime scene. Problematic questions have been asked about probabilities of having two people having matching prints. The major issue with fingerprints is that there is no known error rate in which two individuals have the same print. The difficulty with having an unknown error rate is that when fingerprint evidence is admitted into court it can be challenged on the basis that it could be mere coincidence.

This research proposal is to determine if there is a good way to create a statistical model or some way to predict the chances of having two people have the same print and if so how to implement the statistics. The current statistical evidence provides a good outlook on the usefulness of fingerprints in the field of forensics, there are a still a few gaps in the literature and there are some presumptions that are difficult to overcome.

The article is intended to provide a better understanding of how useful fingerprint evidence is mainly for criminalists, in order to provide a better objective in identifying suspects and possibly to assist in creating a stronger standard when comparing fingerprints on a larger scale. Overall this article will give an outline of the problem with fingerprint individuality and the trials encountered in developing some models and techniques to analyze the problem.