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Fingerprint opens with a fiction-like recounting of the double murder
that first used fingerprint technology. Though Beavan does use standard,
non-fiction writing techniques, he liberally sprinkles in more fiction-like
anecdotes.
While Beavan goes into detail--sometimes more detail than is warranted--he
manages to entertain while informing.
Fingerprinting and the classification of fingerprints dates back
to 1858 when William Herschel began experimenting with fingerprints.
Yet it wasn’t implemented as evidence in crime detection until the
British adopted fingerprint classification in 1901. By 1904, the United
States caught the bug and began a fingerprint collection of their
own.
Prior to 1901, “eye witness” testimony was the only requirement for
convicting and sentencing someone. And the punishments were severe,
frequently resulting in death. Whether the guilty was a first time
offender or a habitual criminal had no bearing on his sentencing.
Finally, in 1869, England adopted the Habitual Criminals Act whereby
instituting harsher sentences for the recidivist. With the adoption
of this Act came jails. The street-side tortures and hangings eventually
subsided.
Then in 1904, Thomas and Ann Forrow were murdered in their Deptford
(England) paint store. Thanks to a fingerprint found on a metal cash
box, Alfred and Albert Stratton were tried and hanged for murdering
the Farrows. This was England’s first conviction using the fingerprint
classification system.
Thomas Jennings was the first to be convicted of murder in the United
States, in 1911, using fingerprint evidence.
Though dry reading in some places, Fingerprints is an interesting
read detailing how fingerprinting came to be accepted as evidence
both in England and in the United States. I recommend Fingerprints
to anyone interested in the history of fingerprinting.
Mystery writers will find useful information in Fingerprints, but
if you just want to know the forensic details skip to the section
about how fingerprinting classification works.
For those who write historical mysteries, you’ll find even more useful
information--if not the seed for a story--as the history of fingerprints
dates back to 1858.
Copyright © 2001 Jodie L. Ball
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Don’t let this slim volume
fool you--of the 232 pages, 203 are text; the remaining 29 pages include
the author’s source notes, bibliography, and a brief index. With seventeen
pages of sources, it’s evident Beavan did his homework.