Personal Identification 1

PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION AND THE SCIENCE OF FINGERPRINTS

THE INTRODUCTORY PART

IDENTIFICATION is a method of determination of individuality or recognition of a person. It may be complete or partial. Complete identification means the absolute fixation of individuality and Partial identification is the ascertainment of only some facts of the identity of a person while others remain unknown. Absolute personal identification is essential broadly in the fields like forensic applications, medical purposes, legal purposes, and civilian applications.

Personal identification is defined also as establishing the identity of an individual. The need for personal identification arises in natural mass disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, floods, etc., and in man-made disasters such as terrorist attacks, bomb blasts, mass murders, and in cases when the body is highly decomposed or dismembered to deliberately conceal the identity of the individual. The need to identify the dead is obvious for social and medico-legal purposes. Various techniques of biological anthropology are employed in the process of identifying the individuals from the bones or the body parts. Although the vast methods of HUMAN IDENTIFICATION are THROUGH BIOMETRICS we will limit our discussion here in the FINGERPRINT SCIENCE.

Historical Background of Identification and Fingerprint Science: During Ancient Time:

1. Holland and China – Identification of individual were by means of tattooing, branding; mutilation, and also by wearing clothes of different designs.
2. Old Mexico – Tile Aztecs impressed their hands accidentally or intentionally on molded, still soft days to serve as their trademarks. The Toltecs stamped their hands on death warrants.
3. Humans’ fascination with fingerprints began thousands of years ago, as evidenced by the pictures left behind. Prehistoric cave art, including a hand with ridge patterns, was discovered in Nova Scotia. Other caves in France depict images of finger and footprints dating back further than 15,000 BCE.
4. Egypt – a lump of hardened mud, was found in a Sebeklan deposit on the Kom Ombo Rain, on the east bank of the River Nile, Egypt. It shows a portion of an adult palm. The discovery is very rare & probably the things date from 12,000 BC.
5. France – Rock carvings and paintings featuring hand design and fingerprints may have been found on the granite walls. In the latter part of the 19^th century, French Police came to know of a system called personal description. ALPHONSE BERTILLON calls the method Portrait Parle, which means likeness.
6. Babylonia – the first use of fingerprints for personal identification originated when Babylonian Magistrates ordered their officers in making arrests and property confiscation to secure the defendant’s fingerprints. Clay tablets are also used to impress their finger for a business transaction.
7. Judea – the Holy Bible obtains facts based on fingerprints (Apostle Paul used his own fingerprint to sign his letter (Thessalonians 3:17 “I Paul, Greet you with own hand. This is a mark in every letter”. /Job 37.7 – he seethes up the hands of all men, that everyone may know his works”./Rev. 13’16 ”it will cause all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the bond, to have a mark on their right hand or their foreheads.”
8. Jerusalem – fingerprint relics were found in the clay lumps during the 4^th and 5″ centuries of the Christian Era.
9. China – fingerprint is called “HUA CHI”. The value of fingerprint for the identification was found on a Chinese clay seal made not later than the 3^rd Century B.C. During the Tang Dynasty, fingerprints were used in the connection with the preparation of legal documents. In the code domestic relation in Chinese Law Books – “to divorce a wife, a husband must write a field of divorcement, and state the reason or grounds that are due for action and impress his palm print thereon”. For contracts, fingerprints were also used as signatures of those who were illiterates, who cannot read or write.
10. Japan – Deeds, notes, and certificates to be used as proofs were sealed by the mark of the hand (palm print) called “TEGATA”. The criminals were to imprint their thumbprint, which took place of their signature.
11. Constantinople – In Treaty Ratification, the sultan soaked his hand in sheep blood and impressed it on the document as his seal.
12. England – Thomas, an English engraver, author, and naturalist engraved a pattern of his own fingers on every work he had finished to serve as his mark so as to establish its genuineness. In 1753-1828, Thomas Bewick, an engraver/author, works on natural history engraved his fingerprint on wood.

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12. United States.

1. 1. 1. Gilbert Thompson – a geologist in New Mexico, adopted the first individual use of fingerprint on August 8, 1882, by using his own thumbprint to prevent tampering with the pay orders he issued. He used also his thumbprint for camp order on an expedition to New Mexico in 1904 fingerprinting was officially adopted in Kansas followed by the US Army in 1905; US Navy in 1906; US Marines in 1907 and by the FBI in 1908.
      2. Isaiah West Taber – a photographer in San Francisco engaged in the study of the promotion of Fingerprint System even before Galton’s participation. He advocated the use of the system for the registration of immigrant Chinese.
      3. Samuel Langhorne Clemens – an Englishman whose pen name is Mark Twain, informally introduced Dactyloscopy in the US, thru his book – “life in the Mississippi” Pudd’n Head Wilson.
      4. Henry P. de Forest – utilized the first use of fingerprints for non-criminal registration on December 19, 1902.
      5. James Parke – advocate the first state and penal use of fingerprint adopted in Sing-sing prison on June 5, 1903, and other penitentiaries as Auburn, Napanoch, and Clinto Penitentia.
      6. John Kenneth Ferrier – an English and first fingerprint instructor at St. Louis Police Department, Missouri. He was one of the pupils of Sir Edward Richard Henry. On April 12, 1904, a fingerprint was officially established.
      7. Mark K Holland – first American instructress in Dactyloscopy.
      8. FBI – an identification unit officially established by an Act of Congress in 1924.
      9. Institute of Applied Science – the first private school to install laboratories for instruction purposes in fingerprint and Dactyloscopy.

 

WHO ARE THE PIONEERS OF FINGERPRINTS

PIONEERS IN FINGERPRINT

1. DR NEHEMIAH GREW (1641-1712) – A known thesis and early study of the ridges and pores on human fingers and palms entitled “Philosophical Transaction” was presented before the Royal Society in London, England.
2. GOVARD BIDLOO (1685) – the work of Grew followed by another thesis “Anatomia Humanis Corpores” by Bidloo, which supported the appearance and arrangement of the ridges on the thumb. The breadths of the individual ridges were exaggerated to show the individual characteristics of the ridged surface.
3. MARCELLO MALPIGHI (1628-1694) – a year after (1686) Malpighi an Italian anatomist published his work “De Externo Tactus Organo” In book form. He described the ridges found on the palmar surface of the hand, which course in diverse design and pores, which serves as the mouth of the sweat glands. He also discovers the inner and outer structure of the human skin, which is known as the dermis for the inner layer and the epidermis for the outer. (He was known as the Grandfather of Dactyloscopy: although there is no clear reference to this even until now and this author is even obsessed to find a basis for this.) One of the layers of human skin was named after him, the Malpighian Layer.
4. EDMUND LOCARD – He is the father of Poroscopy. He was a professor of Anatomy at the University of Bologna, Italy who in 1686 described the anatomical construction of the layer of human skin, particularly those covered by friction ridges. He is also regarded as the Sherlock Holmes of France.
5. Johann Christoph Andreas MAYER (1788) – published a book which is an atlas of anatomical structures and illustrations of fingerprints. He stated that “Although the arrangement of the skin ridges is never duplicated in two persons, nevertheless the similarities are closer on some individuals (Image below, and the next image to him is Hermann Welcker). To support the statement of Mayer, another researcher HERMANN WELCKER (German Anthropologist) In 1856 undertook an experiment by printing his right palm to prove to himself if the ridges change. By 1897, forty-one years later, he again printed his right palm The following years he published these palm print, though taken two scores apart, it proved that the ridge characteristics remain the same.
6. JEAN (JOHANNES) P. EVANGELIST PURKINJE (1787-1869) – was a professor in Anatomy, Physiology, and Theology at the University of Buslan, Prussia and was known as the Father of Dactyloscopy. He systematically classified and divided the various patterns of the fingers into (nine) 9 groups. Said groups are (1) the transverse curve (Plain Arch); (2) the central longitudinal stria (Tented Arch); (3) the oblique stripe (Loop, Ulnar or Radial); (4) the oblique loop (Loop, Ulnar or Radial; (5) the almond (Whorl); (6) the spiral (Whorl); (7)the ellipse-elliptical whorl (Whorl) and; (8) the double whorl (Composite, Twin Loop). He was accorded as the one who introduced the systematic classification of various fingerprint patterns (9 fingerprint patterns) and gets his work published officially on December 22, 1823, in the city of Breslau, Germany.
7. SIR WILLIAM JAMES HERSCHEL (1833-1917) – in 1856, he practiced actual recording of the finger and palm prints of the native of (Hoogly District, Jungipoor, India. In 1877 Herschel wrote to a superior suggesting that fingerprints are used to prevent impersonation and further requested permission to initiate the fingerprint system in all jails in India but his request was futile. Still, he continued using friction ridge identification until his retirement and was accorded as the first European of the modern period to practice fingerprint identification.  He made an experiment with his own fingerprint the 1st set was taken in his 26th year, the 2nd during the 44th year & the last set was taken when he is 83 years old. In his own examination, he found no changes in the series of print.
   
8. HENRY FAULDS – Scottish surgeon at Tsukiji Hospital in Tokyo, Japan who in 1880 wrote English Journal “Nature Dealing with Latent Print formed at the crime scene.” He claimed that the Impression would provide positive Identification of offenders when apprehended. The use of printer ink & the printing of all the 10 fingers was attributed to him.
9. SIR FRANCIS GALTON (1822-1911) – a cousin of Charles Darwin credited with being the first scientist of friction skin identification as well as his role in promoting its use the scientist who divided the types of the fingerprint into Arches, Loops, & Whorls. He had proven that RIDGES remain constant through life till decomposition sets and that friction ridges contain individual characteristics which termed or called “Galton’s detail” after his name and is the basis for “dactylography”. According to his calculations, the odds of two individual fingerprints being the same were 1 in 64 billion. . He wrote a book in fingerprints in 1892 & his system was officially adopted. The official logo of the International Association for Identification (IAI) depicts the right forefinger of Francis Galton in his honor.
10. JUAN (JOHN) VUCETICH (1858-1925) – Juan Vucetich made the first criminal fingerprint identification in 1892. He was able to identify Francisca Rojas, a woman who murdered her two sons and cut her own throat in an attempt to place blame on another.  Her bloody print was left on a door post, proving her identity as the murderer (In some Spanish-speaking countries (and some part of Europe recognizes him as the father of Fingerprint).

11. SIR EDWARD RICHARD HENRY (1659-1931)

Was appointed Commissioner at Scotland Yard. His system was officially adopted in Wales as well as throughout England. He was the first man to successfully apply a fingerprint in identification. He was accorded as the Father of Fingerprint Science because of his persistence in devising a workable system of classification.

12. QASI (KHAN BAHDUR) AZIZUL HAQUE (1872-1935)/RAI HEM CHANDRA BOSE

They are Hindu Police officer and was attached as staff of Sir Edward Henry to help them in attaining the goal of perfecting the four-division Henry Classification System that lasts up to 1899. (Below is Haque and the extreme lower image is Haque on the left and Bose on the right during their heydays)

The above development of the science of fingerprint remains an interesting scientific and academic study until today. But the aspects of the identification of man formally established in 1888 through “portrait parle”.

THE BERTILLONAGE

Paris police clerk Alphonse Bertillon developed this system for identifying criminals in 1883. Officers were instructed to make an elaborate set of anthropomorphic measures of each suspect. The length and width of the head, the length of the right ear, the size of the feet, and the length of the left, middle and little fingers were all recorded. Taken together, these measurements created a unique set of statistics. Each person on the planet–according to Bertillon–could be reduced to a set of body measurements which they shared with no one else.

The Bertillon system imposed an order to criminal classification and allowed police to discover the “real” identities of the people in their custody. It created a common language for police all over the world. The number sets could be shared–via telegraph–with other law enforcement officers. This global network was intended to prevent habitual criminals from slipping from one police jurisdiction to another without detection.

Alphonse Bertillon was accorded as the father of criminal identification because of his contribution. When the fingerprint system was established, the Bertillonage started to demise. There were instances its accuracy was being attacked due to the similarity of the measurement. Among the famous case was the Will and William West case; in 1903, Will and William West’s fingerprints were compared at Leavenworth Penitentiary after they were found to have very similar Anthropometric measurements.

PIONEERS IN FINGERPRINT IN THE PHILIPPINES

1. 1. Jones – the one who first taught fingerprint In the Philippine Constabulary in 1900.
   2. Bureau of Prisons – records show that of the year 1918 Carpetas (commitment and conviction orders) already bear fingerprints.
   3. Asa N. Darby – under his management during the reoccupation of the Philippines by the American forces, modern and complete fingerprint files had been established for the Philippine Commonwealth.
   4. Generoso Reyes – the first Filipino Fingerprint Technicians employed by the Philippine Constabulary.
   5. Capt Thomas Dugan – of the New York Police Department, and Mr. Flaviano Guerrero of the FBI, Washington; gave the first examinations in fingerprints in 1937. Mr. Agustin Patricio topped it.
   6. PP v. Medina, 59 Phil 330 (Dec. 28, 1933) the first conviction based on fingerprints and the leading Judicial Decision in the Philippine Jurisprudence.
   7. Plaridel Educational Institute (PEI) now Philippine College of Criminology, Manila – is the first governmental recognized school to teach the science of fingerprints and other police sciences. Now the science of fingerprint is taught in all schools offering criminology.

END OF PART 1

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