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Recording Living and Postmortem Friction Ridge Exemplars

The Fingerprint Sourcebook - Chapter 4


National Institute of Justice

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Introduction

The skin is both the largest organ and the first line of protection in the human body. Completely covering the body from head to toe, the skin is primarily consistent in nature everywhere except for the areas covering the palmar surfaces of the fingers and hands and the plantar surfaces of the toes and feet. The skin on these areas is referred to as friction ridge skin. Obtaining legible recordings of these areas of skin is crucial for subsequent comparisons to latent impressions recovered from crime scenes, for comparison against previous records, or for input into automated fingerprint identification systems (AFIS).

Inked prints, record prints, standards, and exemplars are all terms that are used to describe the recording of these unique details.

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