How are fingerprints used to identify criminals?

Answer 1

Fingerprints of every person are unique. except for twins. . So fingerprints are used as evidence.

This has been established over the years as scientific fact that has never been shown to be erroneous. It is pretty much considered common knowledge in this day and age, were 100 years ago it was still not accepted. DNA evidence has only recently been accepted by the scientific community and the laws around it are still evolving. And the use of such things as teeth marks is a growing area.

Answer 2

Not sure what you are after but here goes. Fingerprints are all different. No two people have exactly the same. There are oils on your skin that whenever you touch something you leave a trace of your fingerprint on that object. The police use a very light dust that will stick to the oils left behind and give them a "print" of your finger. If they have your fingerprints on record then they can match them to you. You have fingerprints because when God created man He thought of everything. If your fingers didn't have ridges on them your skin would be smooth. Smooth skin won't grab onto things. Your fingerprints give you grip. Cool isn't it?

Answer 3

Because fingerprints don't lie because everyone has a different fingerprint.

[Edit 1] Every person has a different set of fingerprints.

There are different types of finger prints based on appearance they can be loop, whorl, arch or tented arch. There are several identifiable patterns in fingerprints known as minutiae and no individuals prints have the same characteristics in the same places which makes it unique and therefore a vital peice of evidence.

Fingerprints are easily left behind, even when a criminal is being particulary careful, it can only take a single fingerprint in a crime scene to place a person at the scene. Thanks to modern science there are now many ways to recover fingerprints from different places or different surfaces without destroying the evidence.

Answer 4

Fingerprints are reliable due to the fact that no two people have the same finger prints. Even identical twins have different fingerprints! In addition to finger prints, your lip prints, ear prints and palm prints are all unique. Here is a really good basic write up on them and how they can be used and what we can do with them in law enforcement. http://www.bxscience.edu/publications/forensics/articles/fingerprinting/r-fing01.htm

Answer 5

say you were the suspect and you didn't want to get cought. you didn't think that gloves would help so you went on. the fingerprint is a valuable pice of evidence because they can use it to find personal things like name, age, phone number, ect. and with this info they can track you down and send you to jail.

Answer 6

Fingerprinting can be used to identify criminals of all sorts - ranging from simple thieves to serial killers. If, say, it is a theft or a robbery at a store, police can use fingerprinting to uncover the possible fingerprints of the criminal. I am not completely sure, but at some point in your life, you must be fingerprinted so that your fingerprint is recorded in a system that is set up by the government. (sorry, I'm rambling a bit now)To cut it short, fingerprinting can be used to identify theperpetratorof a crime when there is no other evidence found. However, this method can often be foiled by the fact that the criminal can simply wear some gloves, or use other methods to prevent their fingerprints from being discovered. I'm pretty sure that there was one criminal who scraped the skin off the tips of his fingers in order to remove the possibilities of a fingerprint.

I hope this was a bit useful. :)

Answer 7

they help catch criminals because everyone has a diffrent fingerprint.and police can take your fingerprint and see if you have a criminal record

Answer 8

Everybody has their own fingerprints/DNA traces. Thus, if there's a match at a crime scene, there's almost a perfect chance that it's that person.

Answer 9

so they can identify who did what