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Published byBérengère Guérin Modified over 5 years ago
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FINGERPRINTS and Other Methods of Identification
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History of Criminal Identification
Identification of persons especially criminals has always been a problem with the police. In ancient Egypt, detailed descriptions of criminals were maintained by the police. In many societies, the problem of identifying wrongdoers was solved by branding and mutilating them.
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The French Police The first person to bring some sense to the methods of identification was Eugéne François Vidocq ( ). The policemen of his time had to look at the criminal carefully and remember his facial characteristics as accurately as possible. Such a method had its own obvious limitations
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Belgium Police Belgian statistician Adolphe Quételet ( ), put forward his theory that there was a one to four chance of any two adult persons having the same height. This means that if 8 adult people are chosen and paired at random, only one pair would have exactly the same height. Based on the fact that bone length does not change after adulthood.
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Bertillion Method The first rigorously scientific method of identification was adopted by the Frenchman Alphonse Bertillon ( ). He extended the method of Quételet. Thus if he added just one more measurement, say the length of the trunk, the chances of finding exactly the same two measurements in any two individuals would be reduced to 42 or 1 in 16. The same logic could be applied further. If, say, 11 measurements are taken, the chances would be 411 or 1 in 4,194,304.
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Bertillion Method Bertillon took 14 measurements in all, and according to his calculations, his chances of failure were only 1 in 268,435,456! He included such measurements as length of the head, circumference of the head, length of fingers, length of foot and so on. His method is a basis for physical identification today called Biometrics.
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