Fingerprint Basics
This type os forensic evidence has been used for over 100 years to identify suspects and victims.
What are fingerprints?
This is the most common fingerprint pattern, found in about 60-70% of the population.
What is a loop?
Another term used for known fingerprint records.
What are exemplars?
This type of fingerprint is invisible to the naked eye and must be developed with powders and chemicals.
What is latent print?
This term refers to unique biological measurements or features used to identify.
What are biometrics?
These raised portions of the epidermis create friction and allow humans to grip objects.
What are friction ridges?
This fingerprint contains ridges that make a complete circuit around a central core.
What is a whorl?
This type of fingerprint record is most commonly collected using ink on a tenprint card.
What are inked prints?
This layer of skin forms the blueprint for friction ridges visible on the surface.
What is the basal layer?
This biometric is the most commonly used for criminal identification worldwide and was the first to be digitized.
What are fingerprints?
This forensic principle states, "Every contact leaves a trace."
What is Locard's Exchange Principle?
This pattern is the least common and makes up about 5% of fingerprints.
What is an arch?
Known prints are collected for this purpose when compared to latent prints from the crime scene.
What is comparison to unknown or latent prints?
This type of fingerprint is three-dimensional and left in a soft or pliable material.
What are plastic prints?
AFIS serves this purpose when determining whether an individual has been arrested before.
What is a tenprint record search?
Fingerprint analysis examines a single print to determine suitability, type, and features.
What is fingerprint analysis?
This fingerprint pattern requires two deltas and a sufficient recurve.
What is a whorl?
THis digital method records fingerprints using a glass or plastic plate and directly feeds into AFIS.
What is Livescan fingerprinting?
These fingerprints are visible because they are left in a colored or visible substance.
What is a patent print?
The AFIs process involves the computer identifying minutiae such as bifurcations, ridges, endings, and dots.
What is feature extraction?
No two fingerprints have ever been found to share the same types and arrangements of these features.
What are minutiae?
The two key features used to describe ridge flow in fingerprint patterns are these.
What are the core and the delta?
These challenges may complicate the collection of exemplars from deceased individuals. (4 answers)
What are rigor mortis, putrefaction, maceration, or mummification?
This substance coats friction ridges and is deposited onto a surface to form a latent print.
What is the matrix?
This AFIS database stores unidentified latent fingerprints so they can be searched against future tenprint records.
What is the Unsolved Latent database?