Fingerprinting

[Lucy]

I am impressed when Murdoch and the gang say that they are going to 'dust for fingermarks'

Most of the time you will hear people in other shows refer to fingerprints, but this is not necessarily true. All prints and marks may be referred to as fingerprints but there is a dfference between the two

It might just be in the UK but fingermarks are the 'marks' left by the ridge skin on fingers. Most of the time this is not a full print (i.e. a partial fingerprint)

Fingerprints are what is taken at the police station on ten-print cards. These are then put in the database (i.e. AFIS in the US, IDENT1 in England, Scotland and Wales). Fingerprint also refers to the whole of the print. So, if you were to find a full print at a crime scene then you could refer to this as a fingerprint

[hannikan]

Very interesting! I wondered about that. I thought maybe in Britain it was just a slightly different term but that explanation makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing!

[wilbour]

Here in Canada I have yet to hear of the term "Fingermarks" in my line of work. We will refer to ridge detail left by friction skin or just prints found at scene.

We are cautious about narrowing it down to just fingerprints as we will record all frictions skin detail. Our databases consist of all 10 fingers and both palm impressions. So what would have been interpreted as a large fingerprint could be a partial palm print.

We are now placing people at a scene when all they left behind was the edge of their hand as they looked through a window.