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FINGERPRINTING IN THE UNITED STATES

المؤلف:  Max M. Houck، Jay A. Siegel

المصدر:  Fundamentals of Forensic Science

الجزء والصفحة:  p496-497

2026-08-23

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FINGERPRINTING IN THE UNITED STATES

The first known systematic use of fingerprint identification in the United States occurred in 1902 in New York City. The New York Civil Service Commission faced a scandal in 1900 when several job applicants were discovered to have hired better educated persons to take their civil service exams for them. The New York Civil Service Commission therefore began fingerprinting applicants to verify their identity for entrance exams and to prevent better-qualified persons taking tests for unscrupulous applicants. The first set of fingerprints was taken on December 19, 1902 and was the first use of fingerprints by a government agency in the United States (Cole, 2001). Also in 1902, officials from the New York State Prison Department and the New York State Hospital traveled to England to study the British fingerprint system. The following year, the New York state prison system began to use fingerprints for the identification of criminals; the use of fingerprinting increased even more when the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, established a fingerprint bureau. This was the first use of fingerprints for criminal identification in the United States. During the 1904 World’s Fair in St Louis, John K. Ferrier of Scotland Yard taught the techniques and methods of fingerprinting to the public and law enforcement. Because of the notoriety of the fair and novelty of fingerprints as a “modern” method, the pub lic and professional awareness of fingerprinting was greatly enhanced in the United States . The first US criminal conviction using fingerprint evidence occurred in Chicago, in the case of Thomas Jennings. Charles Hiller had been murdered during a burglary, and Jennings was charged and tried for the crime and ultimately convicted in 1911. The International Association for Identification (IAI) was formed in 1915 initially as a professional association for “Bertillon clerks,” but as fingerprinting grew and eventually replaced Bertillonage, the focus of the IAI also changed. The Fingerprint Instructor by Frederick Kuhne was published in 1916 and is considered the first authoritative textbook on fingerprinting in the United States. The growing need for a national repository and clearinghouse for fingerprint records led to an Act of Congress on July 1, 1921, that established the Identification Division of the FBI in Washington, DC, in 1924. A boost to the noncriminal use of fingerprinting came in 1933 when the United States Civil Service Commission (now the Office of Personnel Management) submitted over 140,000 government employee and applicant fingerprints to the FBI’s Identification Division; this prompted the FBI to establish a Civil Identification Section, whose fingerprint files would even tually expand well beyond the criminal files. In 1992, the Identification Division was renamed the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division and is now housed in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The increasing use of biological identification methods, or biometrics, continues to expand the use of fingerprinting; see “In More Detail: Biometrics and Forensic Science” for more information.