Fingerprints have been used as a means of identification dating back well over two thousand years. Over the past century, the fingerprinting process has become more sophisticated, and it has been put to many more uses.

The first documented fingerprints were taken in India in 1858 by Sir William J. Hershel. Soon thereafter advances were made on several fronts, and Sir Edward Henry devised a classification system around the turn of the 20th century that is still in practice today.

The first evidence of the use of fingerprints in the United States was by a surveyor in New Mexico by the name of Gilbert Thompson who, in 1882, put his own prints on a survey to prevent forgery. The first recorded use of fingerprints identification in a criminal matter dates back to 1892 when an Argentina Police Commodore by the name of Juan Vucetich took prints off a door post to nail a murderer. The use of fingerprint identification as a means of solving criminal cases advanced quickly as both Scotland Yard and the U.S.A. implemented the use of fingerprints by the turn of the 20th century.

The use of fingerprinting became standard operating procedure in the United States and, in 1924. Congress endowed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) with the authority to establish as Identification Division. This centralized all fingerprinting files and made it much easier to identify repeat criminals and missing persons. Today the F.B.I. uses a computerized system to contain the fingerprints of some 34 Million criminals. This is especially helpful because the recidivism rates are extremely high, except in those crimes of passion, such as manslaughter which generally is a non-repetitive crime.

Now for the reason I am writing this article. Since the beginning of the Chouteau County Sheriff’s Office, fingerprints of criminals have been taken with the old ink and paper method. They are then sent to the Department of Justice in Helena, and eventually sent on to the F.B.I. to be put in the AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System).

On July 11th with the help of a grant from the Montana Board of Crime Control, we have just received, installed and trained on Crossmatch’s Live Scan. This device electronically reads a person’s fingerprint and allows the office to either print out a fingerprint card or with the touch of a button send the fingerprinted to the Department of Justice in Helena were they are then forwarded to AFIS. This will save our Detention staff time and get the criminals prints into the system in faster and help identify a person faster if they are in AFIS.