Thumb impression; finger impression
Mayank Sood
(Querist) 26 June 2012
This query is : Resolved
In a thumb or a finger impression, can it be known from the ridges of the impression, whether the impression is of left hand or right hand?
SAINATH DEVALLA
(Expert) 26 June 2012
Dear Mr.Mayank,
The impressions of all the 20 fingers of both the hands vary from each other atleast with a minute difference.Hence it can be easily made out with examination,whether the impression is of the left hand or right hand.
More details:-
Fingerprints offer an infallible means of personal identification. That is the essential explanation for their having supplanted other methods of establishing the identities of criminals reluctant to admit previous arrests.
The science of fingerprint Identification stands out among all other forensic sciences for many reasons, including the following:
No two fingerprints have ever been found alike in many billions of human and automated computer comparisons. Fingerprints are the very basis for criminal history foundation at every police agency on earth.
Established the first forensic professional organization, the International Association for Identification (IAI), in 1915.
Established the first professional certification program for forensic scientists, the IAI's Certified Latent Print Examiner program (in 1977), issuing certification to those meeting stringent criteria and revoking certification for serious errors such as erroneous identifications.
Remains the most commonly used forensic evidence worldwide - in most jurisdictions fingerprint examination cases match or outnumber all other forensic examination casework combined.
Continues to expand as the premier method for identifying persons, with tens of thousands of persons added to fingerprint repositories daily in America alone - far outdistancing similar databases in growth.
Worldwide, fingerprints harvested from crime "scenes lead to more suspects and generate more evidence in court than all other forensic techniques combined.
Other visible human characteristics change - fingerprints do not. In earlier civilizations, branding and even maiming were used to mark the criminal for what he was. The thief was deprived of the hand which committed the thievery. The Romans employed the tattoo needle to identify and prevent desertion of mercenary soldiers.
Before the mid-1800s, law enforcement officers with extraordinary visual memories, so-called "camera eyes," identified previously arrested offenders by sight. Photography lessened the burden on memory but was not the answer to the criminal identification problem. Personal appearances change. Around 1870, French anthropologist Alphonse Bertillon devised a system to measure and record the dimensions of certain bony parts of the body. These measurements were reduced to a formula which, theoretically, would apply only to one person and would not change during his/her adult life.
To your doubt as to why left hand thmb impression of males and right hand impression of females is taken, I would say it is to identify at the outset that whether the person signed is male or female.
R.K Nanda
(Expert) 26 June 2012
Not a legal query.
Mayank Sood
(Querist) 26 June 2012
Thank you Mr. Sainath. I understand that the impression taken from a finger is always different from that of any other finger or thumb. And therefore we can always know whether the impression is of which of the fingers if the person is made to give an impression of his fingers again. But the scenario here I am talking about is a bit different. I hava a document where there is an impression of a thumb. The person whose impression is being talked about is not alive and therefore I cannot prove whether its of left thumb or right. For a document to be legal a male has to give left thumbs impression and a female right thumbs impression. Therefore my question is very simple. Whether there is a method/procedure which can tell that the thumb impression is of left thumb or right thumb? I hope I made myself clear this time.
Mr. R. K. Nanda, the query is very much legal. The document here of which we are required to test the authenticity is a legal document. May be you can say its answer can only be given by an expert or a forensic expert to be precise.
SAINATH DEVALLA
(Expert) 26 June 2012
Mr.Mayank,basically this is not a legal query and Mr.Nanda is right.
Dermatoglyphics is the study of skin ridges, and particularly fingerprints. Your fingerprints form while you are still in the womb, and do not change during your life.
Whether it is the print of a right thumb or a left thumb or whether it is of a male or a female
can be assesed by finger print experts.This study is nothing but an advanced study of dermetology.
Mayank Sood
(Querist) 26 June 2012
Thank you again Mr. Sainath. Do you have some evidence to corroborate what you have said in the second paragraph starting with 'Whether'. I mean some book/website/web link. It will be really helpful if you can provide one. Thank you again in advance.
