The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community Honors Theses Honors College Spring 5-2018 Using Pattern Area Ridge Flow in the Three Areas of the Palm to Determine Classification rT ends Ashton Horton University of Southern Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://aquila.usm.edu/honors_theses Part of the Forensic Science and Technology Commons Recommended Citation Horton, Ashton, "Using Pattern Area Ridge Flow in the Three Areas of the Palm to Determine Classification Trends" (2018). Honors Theses. 568. https://aquila.usm.edu/honors_theses/568 This Honors College Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College at The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The University of Southern Mississippi Using Pattern Area Ridge Flow in the Three Areas of the Palm to Determine Classification Trends by Ashton Horton A Thesis Submitted to the Honors College of The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science in the School of Criminal Justice May 2018 ii Approved by ___________________________________ Dean J. Bertram, Ph.D., Thesis Advisor Professor of Forensic Science __________________________________ Lisa Nored, J.D., Ph.D., Director The School of Criminal Justice ____________________________________ Ellen Weinauer, Ph.D. Dean of the Honors College iii ABSTRACT Friction ridge skin is only located on the fingers, palms, and soles of feet. These ridges have been used to make identifications since before the twentieth century. These methods may be the basis of scientific testimony in court because of the amount of research that has been conducted in fingerprint identification. Courts uphold these techniques because of three principles behind fingerprint identification: fingerprints are unique because no two are the same, they will not change from the time they are formed in the womb until post-mortem decomposition, and they can be objectively classified using a general classification system. Little research has been done on the subject of this study. However, the three principles, which give credibility to fingerprint techniques, also applies to the palms. An examination and evaluation of palm print patterns and the pattern areas that appear in the palms is necessary to assist and further the knowledge of latent print examiners in palm print classification and comparison. iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank my thesis advisor and mentor, Dr. Dean Bertram, for his help and encouragement throughout this process. I would also like to thank him for introducing me to Kelley Counts from Ron Smith & Associates, who is the brain from where this research idea originated. If it were not for Dr. Bertram and Kelley I would have never been able to complete this study. A big thank you to Ron Smith & Associates for allowing me to use one of their databases as the data pool to complete this research. I would also like to thank Dr. Alan Thompson for always encouraging me and being willing to give his advice throughout this research process and my undergraduate career. I would also like to thank my friends and family for their constant support and encouragement throughout my college career. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES …………………………………………………………………… vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ………………………………………………………… viii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………… 1 Objectives of Study II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE ………………………………………... 4 Fingerprint Patterns Anatomy of Friction Ridge Skin Growth and Development of Friction Ridge Skin Friction Ridge Flow of the Palm III. MATERIALS AND METHODS ……………………………………. 24 Data Collection Palm Print Patterns Limiting Factors IV. RESULTS ………………………………............................................ 27 Total Patterns in the Palms Patterns in the Right Palm Patterns in the Left Palm Whorl Patterns in the Palms V. DISCUSSION ……………………………………………………….. 33 Evaluation of Total Patterns in the Palms Evaluation of Patterns in the Right and Left Palms Evaluation of Whorl Patterns in the Palms Overall Evaluation of Palm Print Classification REFERENCES ……………………………………………………………..……….. 38 APPENDIX …...…………………………………………………………….……….. 40 vi List of Tables Table 1. Total Patterns found in the Interdigital, Thenar, and HypoThenar Areas ………… 28 2. Total Patterns in the Interdigital, Thenar, and HypoThenar Areas - Right Palm …. 28 3. Total Patterns in the Interdigital, Thenar, and HypoThenar Areas- Left Palm ……. 29 4. Rotation and Area that Whorl Patterns were found in the Right Palms …………… 30 5. Rotation and Area the Whorl Patterns were found in the Left Palms ……………... 31 6. Whorl Pattern Types, Rotation Direction, Area the Pattern is Located …………… 32 vii List of Illustrations Figure 1. a. Loop and b. Arch ……………………………………………………………… 4 2. a. Plain, b. Central Pocket Loop, c. Double Loop, and d. Accidental Whorls …... 5 3. Outline of the Interdigital, Thenar, and HypoThenar areas of the Right Hand …10 4. Outline of the Waterfall Displayed in the Left and Right Hands ……………… 10 5. Outline of Clean Delta, Double Snow Cone Delta, and the Side Cone Delta in the Left Hand ….…………………………………………………………..… 12 6. Outline of the Half-Moon shape in the Thenar area on the Right Hand ……….. 14 7. Outline of the Vestige in the Thenar area of the Palm …………………………. 16 8. Outline of the Flip Area as it appears on the Left Hand ……………………….. 17 9. Outline of the Down and Out and Funnel areas as they appear on the Left Hand ………………………………………………………………………. 19 10. Outline of the Belly-Out portion of the Left Hand …………………………….. 20 11. The Carpal Delta and Hump Areas of the palm as they look on the Left Hand .. 21 12. The Smooth over Short Appearance with a High Carpal Delta ………………... 22 viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Latent fingerprints are one of the most common types of evidence found at crime scenes. Anyone can tell you that fingerprints are unique because of the “CSI” effect, but what most people do not know is why and how they are unique. The “CSI effect” is a common belief among those in the law enforcement and prosecutorial professions that forensic science television shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation have shifted the public’s expectations when it comes to the amount of forensic evidence that they believe should be present in a case (Roberts, 2017). In these television shows, there always seems to be fingerprint evidence, and they always seem to be of good enough quality to identify a suspect. However, in the real world, often only partial latent finger and palm prints are of good enough quality to be analyzed and used in making identifications. If a partial print only shows the bottom half of a palm print, being able to identify which area of the palm and which hand the print is from would help examiners and investigators when trying to identify a suspect. If the print came from a weapon, knowing which hand is on a certain side of the weapon can provide investigators with the dominant hand of a suspect and can be a useful piece of information when looking at a list of suspects. Friction skin ridges leave an impression when they come in contact with an object, which is where the term latent fingerprint originates (International Association for Identification et al., 2011). These impressions are invisible to the naked eye without some kind of light source. Friction skin ridges through fingerprints have been used to identify people worldwide for years (International Association for Identification et al., 2011). A 1 large amount of research has been completed on latent fingerprints. These previous studies have caused some researchers to investigate whether one can determine which hand a latent fingerprint came from based on the rotation of a specific pattern. Singh, Chattopadhyay, and Garg (2005) reason that this is a valuable tool because, at a crime scene, latent prints are rarely in sequence and often the crime scene personnel are not lifting full fingerprints. There are three types of fingerprint patterns: loops, arches, and whorls. Whorls are one of the more common types of fingerprint patterns. Thirty-five percent of fingerprints are whorls (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1988). Because of the commonality, studies determining the hand of origin have been conducted on whorl fingerprint patterns of fingerprints (Singh et al., 2005, Mandrah and Kanwal, 2016, Nagesh et al., 2012). A whorl is just as it sounds, essentially a pattern that has a centered starting point and spirals outward. Studies have found that the direction in which a whorl spirals out can play a vital role in determining which hand the print belongs to (Singh et al., 2005). If a whorl spirals in a counter clockwise direction, it can be associated with the right hand, and if it spirals in a clockwise direction, it can be associated with the left hand (Singh et al., 2005, Mandrah and Kanwal, 2016, Nagesh et al., 2012). The objective of this project is to take the application of the studies mentioned above and see if this concept can be applied to the thenar and hypothenar areas of the palm. The palm is divided into three major areas: the interdigital, thenar, and hypothenar areas (Ron Smith and Associates, 2002). The interdigital area of the palm is essentially the area right below the pointer, middle, ring, and little fingers (Ron Smith and Associates, 2002). The thenar area is the lower half of the palm surrounding the thumb, 2 and the hypothenar area is the lower half of the palm surrounding the little finger (Ron Smith and Associates, 2002). The goals of this project are to: 1. Separate known hand print cards into right hand and left hand. 2. Observe the three main areas of the palm and note any pattern formations that make up loops or whorls. 3. Label the pattern type of any pattern formations that occur in the three areas.