29th July 2010
search

Book list
Fingerprinting

Advances in Fingerprint Technology
Authors: Henry C. Lee and R. E. Gaensslen
Publisher: CRC Press, 1994 - ISBN: 0849309239

This book forms part of the CRC series in forensic and police science. It opens with the history and development of fingerprinting and goes on to describe, in detail, methods of identifying and developing latent prints. There is a chapter each on using ninhydrin (and its analogues) and on using lasers. The second half of the book is about automated fingerprint identification systems (AFIS), covering the North American Morpho system and the De la Rue Printrak system in detail. Guidance on how to act as an expert witness is covered in the final chapter. The tone of this book is technical and detailed, and it is probably most useful to those already working in the field.

Buy it


Fingerprint Detection with Lasers
Authors: E. Roland Menzel
Publisher: Marcel Dekker, Inc, New York, 1999, 2nd edition - ISBN: 082471943

The second edition of this ground-breaking reference work offers a complete, up-to-date treatment of fingerprint detection with lasers, including basic principles and equipment, established photoluminescence-based detection techniques, and an exciting range of emerging technologies. This book summarises new information on time-resolved fingerprint detection, image intensifiers and CCD cameras, transition selection rules, uses of photoluminescence in criminalistics and scientific principles underlying fingerprint identification.


Fingerprints: Murder and the Race to uncover the Science of Identity
Authors: Colin Beavan
Publisher: Harper Collins, 2002 - ISBN: 1841157392

In this book, Colin Bevan uses several gripping real-life dramas as the underpinning for an engaging history of the rise of forensic science. He covers the entire history of fingerprinting from the pioneering use of physical evidence by Vidocq at the beginning of the nineteenth century through Herschel's experiments, Faulds' suggestion that fingerprinting be used to identify criminals, Galton's studies into fingerprints as predictors of character, Henry and Haque's system of fingerprint classification to the powerful computers that store and match fingerprints today. Cases include the murder of Thomas and Ann Farrow in Deptford, London in 1905, the mistaken prosecution and sentence of Adolf Beck in 1904 and the conviction of Thomas Jennings for the Clarence Hiller's murder in the US in 1911. The book contains a chronology of fingerprinting, extensive source notes, a bibliography and an index as well as an epilogue relating the science of fingerprinting with that of DNA.


Friction Ridge Skin: Comparison and Identification of Fingerprints
Authors: James F. Cowgar
Publisher: CRC Press, 1993 - ISBN: 084939502X

The author's purpose in writing this book was to give beginners an introduction to the subject, to give experienced criminologists a means of becoming identification specialists, and to give experienced fingerprinting specialists food for thought. Cowgar is keen to define fingerprinting as a forensic science, with the appropriate discipline and knowledge, rather than as a "technicians' task". Chapters include Taking Inked Prints, Classification, Evidence Prints, Photography of Prints and Impressions, Determining Identity and Comparing Prints.


Quantitative-Qualitative Friction Ridge Analysis: An Introduction to Basic and Advanced Ridgeology
Authors: David R. Ashbaugh
Publisher: CRC Press, 1999 - ISBN: 0849370078

This is a new book in the ongoing Practical Aspects of Criminal and Forensic Investigations series and it examines the latest methods and techniques in the science of friction ridge identification, or ridgeology. Ashbaugh examines every facet of the discipline, from the history of friction ridge identification and its earliest pioneers and researchers, to the scientific basis and the various steps of the identification process.
The structure and growth of friction skin and how it can leave latent or visible prints are examined, as well as advanced identification methods in ridgeology, including Poroscopy, Edgeoscopy, pressure Distortion, and Complex or Problem Print Analysis. The book also includes a new method for Palmar Flexion Crease Identification (palm lines) designed by the author and which has helped solve several criminal cases where fingerprints were not available. For crime scene technicians, forensic identification specialists, this book is claimed to be the definitive source in the science of friction ridge identification.

Buy it


Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification
Authors: Simon A. Cole
Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2001 - ISBN: 06740045580

In this book, Simon Cole reveals that the history of criminal identification is far murkier than we have been led to believe. Cole traces the modern system of fingerprint identification to the nineteenth-century bureaucratic state and its desire to track and control increasingly mobile, diverse populations whose race or ethnicity made them suspect in the eyes of authorities. In an intriguing history that traverses the globe, Cole excavates the forgotten and hidden history of criminal identification - from photocopy to exotic anthropometric systems based on measuring body parts, from fingerprinting to DNA typing. He reveals how fingerprinting ultimately won the trust of the public and the law only after a long battle against rival systems of identification. As we rush headlong into the era of genetic identification, and as fingerprint errors are being exposed, this history uncovers the fascinating interplay of our elusive individuality, police and state power, and the quest for scientific certainty.


The Fingerprint Story
Authors: Gerald Lambourne
Publisher: Harrap, 1984 - ISBN: 0245539638

The author begins his story by following the interest in fingerprints from the earliest times up to those eminent men of the nineteenth century whose establishment of a genuine fingerprint science led to the formation of the Fingerprint Department at Scotland Yard on 1st July 1901. Fingerprints were destined quickly to supersede internationally all previous methods of establishing beyond question the true identities of criminals appearing before the courts. After this, the story moves in the main to the fight against crime. The development of the Fingerprint Department over eighty years is illustrated with intriguing references to the inner stories of many famous cases, including the great train robbery of 1963. The author follows the phenomenal growth of the National Fingerprint Collection and the establishment of the Criminal record Office. In 1964, Lambourne led the research team which examined the feasibility ofincluding fingerprint information in the Police National Computer, a system which became fully operational in 1976. He also describes the development of
new techniques in the field of fingerprint technology, including the system he devised for identifying glove-prints. (OUT OF PRINT)


Media Centre