Practical fingerprint analysis process and challenges both internal and external for the latent print community

An awareness of friction ridge skin [fingerprints] can be traced to China in a period of history 300 years B.C. Other watershed events in the history of fingerprints are found through recorded history as well as in works of fiction. There was a shared hypothesis among the early investigators that fingerprints may be permanent, unchanging, and individually unique. Many of these early researchers' works were unknown to one another. Today, fingerprints are used worldwide by law enforcement and others for personal identification. The U.S. rules of evidence and case law like Frye [1] and Daubert [2] have been effective in keeping junk science from U.S. court rooms. Recently, the science of fingerprints, and other patterned evidence disciplines, has come into question. The 2009 critique by the National Research Council (NRC), National Academy of Sciences (NAS) entitled Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward [3], points to some questions.