Quantitative Measures in Support of Latent Print Comparison

While friction ridge impressions have long been useful in forensic identification, there continues to be a need for quantitative measures. The proposed research will address this goal through three objectives: (i) determination of probability distributions of fingerprint features so that appropriate probability measures can be associated with evidence, (ii) reliability of the process (as measured by uniqueness and permanence of the fingerprints), and (iii) a formalization of the decision process to incorporate cost and other criteria. Each of these studies will be aided by a newly created database of high-quality friction ridge impressions of twins collected by the International Association for Identification. ca/ncf