Late 19th Century: Further Advancements With Technology

Further Advancements with Technology

With the included influence of Conan Doyle’s novels and the natural advancement the real world was making with Sherlock Holmes along side, the progress made by forensic specialists continued to grow. Along with the science growing, so did the technology to support and further expand the science needed to solve crimes.

Further expansion on technology also applies for older methods of forensic investigation that was already effective, but made exponentially more effective. This includes the topic of fingerprints once again. The importance of fingerprints has been established since the early nineteenth century. Authorities used fingerprints typically to prove that a person has handled an item or were present in a certain location. When it comes to solving these, there is actually over one hundred known ways just to develop fingerprints, depending on the surface

This is the real bread and butter when it comes to investigating anything to do with fingerprints as matching fingerprints can practically guarantee facts about certain evidence.

2. The fingerprint will remain unchanged throughout an individual’s lifetime. Sapp (2006)

Fingerprints are a result from the friction skin ridges found on the finger tip. These skin surfaces have been designed by nature to provide our bodies with a firmer grasp and a resistance to slippage when grasping anything. Once a finger touches a surface, perspiration and body oils are transferred onto that surface, thereby leaving an impression of the finger's ridge pattern, otherwise known as a fingerprint. Prints deposited in this manner are invisible to the eye and are commonly referred to as latent or hidden fingerprints. Such prints must be developed before use in an investigation.

3. The last principle; Fingerprints have general ridge patterns that permit them to be systematically classified Sapp