For over 100 years, police agencies have had a powerful tool in combating crime. The use of fingerprinting allows crime fighters an extremely accurate means of identification. Other means of identification (such as hair color or style, weight, or eye color) may change, but fingerprints do not.

In earlier civilizations, branding, tattooing, or even maiming was used to mark and identify criminals. Although man had been aware of the fact that each person possessed a unique set of ridges on the fingers and hands, the use of these prints for criminal identification was not accepted until the early 1900s.

The FBI Identification Division was born in 1924, with the receipt of 810,188 fingerprint files, mostly from the Leavenworth Penitentiary. This collection became increasingly important due to the emergence of criminals who regularly crossed state lines.

Currently, the FBI possesses over 250 million sets of fingerprint records. This enormous collection is composed of both criminal and civil prints. The civil file includes the prints of both government employees and applicants for federal jobs.

All standard fingerprint cards are eight-inch square pieces of paper,with a thickness much like that of thin cardboard. At the present time, the FBI receives over 34,000 fingerprint cards each work day. The photograph to the right is an example of a standard FBI fingerprint card.

If all of the fingerprint cards on file with the FBI were piled on top of each other, they would equal one hundred and thirty-three stacks the size of the Empire State Building!

Fingerprints differ from person to person based upon distinctive patterns of ridges. There are seven different finger print patterns used for identification purposes.

Latent fingerprints are difficult to see but can be made visible for examination.  Any fingerprint left at a crime scene (as opposed to one which is on a fingerprint card) is known as a latent fingerprint. Latent fingerprints may be left on almost all surfaces, sometimes even on human skin. Numerous techniques are used to make latent prints visible, such as lasers, powders, alternate light sources, and a process known as "glue fuming".

The West Case

For many years, scientists did not use fingerprinting as a serious tool for identifying criminals. Instead, they used a system which recorded the dimensions of certain skeletal body parts (known as the Bertillon System). But in 1903, Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary received a prisoner by the name of Will West.

Shockingly, Will had almost the same Bertillon measurements (as well as appearance) as another prisoner currently serving a life sentence for murder. But even though the two unrelated criminals looked identical, and had similar names, their fingerprints were, of course, different.

Thanks to this remarkable case, fingerprinting became the standard for personal identification. The two inmates are pictured above. Would you have determined the difference?