A man walked into Smallville Apartments and burglarized several units. When the Smallville crime scene investigators arrived, they found 2 fingerprints on the counter in one of the units that they believed were left by the perpetrator. The first fingerprint was classified as a loop and the second fingerprint was classified as a whorl. The investigators went back to the police station and looked through their fingerprint cards until they found a local man with a record of driving while under the influence of alcohol who had both loop and whorl fingerprint patterns on the same fingers of the same hand. They arrested the man confident they had found the perpetrator.

Why are they wrong to be confident in their arrest and what errors in investigating fingerprints did they make?

discuss at least 3 reasons the investigators are incorrect in this situation!

Question

Kingston Donaldson

Social Studies

19 September, 14:14

A man walked into Smallville Apartments and burglarized several units. When the Smallville crime scene investigators arrived, they found 2 fingerprints on the counter in one of the units that they believed were left by the perpetrator. The first fingerprint was classified as a loop and the second fingerprint was classified as a whorl. The investigators went back to the police station and looked through their fingerprint cards until they found a local man with a record of driving while under the influence of alcohol who had both loop and whorl fingerprint patterns on the same fingers of the same hand. They arrested the man confident they had found the perpetrator.

Why are they wrong to be confident in their arrest and what errors in investigating fingerprints did they make?

discuss at least 3 reasons the investigators are incorrect in this situation!

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Answers (1)

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Gabby · Answer 1

Answer: The investigator are wrong to be confident in their arrest because their is no perfect match in the finger print of the person been arrested and the one gotten from the crime scene. Because their have failed to compare the finger prints pattern seen in their records, to the one gotten from the crime scene.

The investigators are wrong in their arrest because one finger that has a whorl and loop fingerprint pattern cannot produce two different finger print pattern, which was gotten from the crime scene.

Another reason why the investigator are incorrect with their arrest is because, the crime record of the man arrested is very different from the crime committed. They should have traced the people with similar crime records, that has a similar finger prints with the one gotten from the scene.