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The Preservation of Friction Ridges

The Fingerprint Sourcebook - Chapter 8


National Institute of Justice

   See also the instructional video "Evidence Photography — Fingerprints"

Introduction

Inherent in the criminal justice community, and specifically the crime laboratory, is the policy that the information derived from evidence must be preserved to the extent possible. With regard to friction ridge detail, methods of preservation include film and digital photography, latent print lifts, and the use of casting material. Although the two latter methods do create secondary evidence in the form of a lift or cast, the photographing of the friction ridge detail on the lift or the cast is still important to generate additional secondary evidence. Certainly with respect to state and national labs, evidence submitted with a case must be returned to the contributor. With this in mind, the preservation of all relevant friction ridge information derived from evidence is mandatory, and the production of an archival image enables most of that information to be retained within the case file.

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