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Theodore Morse
12/15/15
Senior Project
Mr. Justen

The History Of Forensic Science

The history of criminal justice in America has dated back since the 1800s, ever since day
one there have been crimes that needed to be solved. Breakthroughs in technology have allowed
forensics to become a very popular way to solve crimes. Forensic science in general is a
growing service. Today's crime rate is growing day by day. All different types of criminal
offenses like Child abuse, domestic violence, homicide or even just graffiti all have separate
techniques for solving each crime. Through the 200 plus years that have been recorded, police
officers solving crimes using forensic technology methods have advanced, making crimes with
any evidence easier to solve.
Forensics has not always been seen as a science or a way to solve crimes. People in an
old modern culture called the Ancient Chinese used thumb prints not as a way of solving crimes,
but actually as a way to sign legal documents instead of writing out your full name. The ability
to read and write was just for the upper class people in that age. Eventually their government
figured that taking their thumb prints to sign legal documents would be easier than to teach the

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lower class how to read and write. In ancient times, only the elite were privileged enough to
receive an education. The ability to read and write was usually confined to the royalty and the
priesthood (25 surprising facts (1-5)). In the Ancient Chinese culture they distinguished the
lower class would only sign documents by using thumbprints while the upper class would write
out their names. With today's technology fingerprinting has come a very long way. There really
was no such thing as forensic science 200 years ago, but due to police officers with good
observation skills they realized you could match each human to their unique fingerprint. But
then again fingerprinting is much older than that. One of the first accounts of forensic science
being used to solve a crime occurred in 44 B.C., when Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by
Roman senators. A physician named Antistius was called to study the corpse of Julius Caesar.
Upon examination of the body, Antistius concluded who was responsible for the crime, and the
guilty senators were sentenced to death. The physician made his fateful announcement in the
Roman forum, giving forensic (forensic from the Latin forensics, belonging to the forum)
science its name(MFSD(1-7)). Investigators are now using a system called the Automated
Fingerprint Identification Systems which is also known as AFIS for short. AFIS is an automated
system which once after a fingerprint is scanned into the system AFIS collects the data and stores
it away for all law enforcement to use to solve future crimes and just also to use as an
identification. The downfall of AFIS is that not every human on this earth has had their
fingerprint taken therefore it is very likely that AFIS can come up with a negative match or an

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unknown match. If you are one of those people that does not have your fingerprint in the AFIS
system that usually would mean you have never been arrested or have never had any type of
government job that required a fingerprint during the initial hiring. Including all immigrants that
become united state citizens during the process of becoming a citizen they do have to get their
fingerprints taken to see if they throw up any red flags and or just to keep it for our AFIS system.
Any of those possibilities can be very likely especially if the person is a juvenile. AFIS was
created in 1970 to help organize all the people into an automated database instead of physically
having to flip through cards while trying to match two fingerprints together with just your eyes.

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AFIS has made it very much more

reliable than it use to be, and due to that it has been easier to link crimes to the people who
commit them.
Within the past few years scientist have also found another type of fingerprint. Guns also
do have there own unique markings inside. Once a bullet is shot out of any type of barrel from a
gun the bullet if found will have the very unique exact markings on it just like it was pasted on.
Scientist would say that acts like the fingerprint of a gun. Matching the guns fingerprint to a
damaged bullet can be very misleading in some investigations because the bullet can be
completely damaged to the extent of not being able to read anything with the bullets markings
but it can also be very surprising when the bullet is not completely damaged and the investigators
can read that the two markings from the gun and a bullet match together. Victor Balthazard
realizes that tools used to make gun barrels never leave the same markings, and individual gun

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barrels leave identifying grooves on each bullet fired through it. He developed several methods
of matching bullets to guns via photography (SoftSchools(4-6)). After a crime is committed
with a firearm the steps to solve the crime begins. First investigators need to gather either the
bullet or cartridge case and the weapon from the crime scene. Than its necessary to make sure
the caliber and the bullet would be used together. If the caliber does not match the bullet then it
was not shot from that weapon. Investigators will go through many complicated test that include
using the actual weapon from the crime scene, by shooting the same caliber bullet out into a
water tank for the reason that there is no extensive damage to the bullet so investigators will be
able to match the marks on the demo bullet to the marks on the bullet found at the crime scene to
make sure that the gun is the exact gun that was used. The marks indicate the fingerprintof the
weapon in question. Investigators do find that you can also use Gunshot Residue GSR for short,
as a means of testing for the sight of materials on the hands and clothing of a person or object in
hopes of determining that this individual may have shot a gun recently. Samples if found will be
brought to the lab to be tested to see if the particles that were left on articles or their hand during
the time of the shooting, the collection of residue, and the locations of where the weapon was
fired are important factors that will be used for the outcome of the investigation. The process of
picking up gun residue has actually only been used for about thirty to forty years. Even though

Most historians agree that the ancient Chinese discovered what we refer to as gunpowder.
During the 9th century Taoist monks (alchemists) searching for an elixir of immortality
accidentally stumbled upon the basic formula for black powdera mixture of saltpeter
(potassium nitrate), charcoal and sulfur. Later versions of gunpowder contain these same basic

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ingredients, but the overall chemistry evolved to include modifications that produced smokeless
gunpowder, Cordite, which eliminated the sulfur. Other advances added materials such as
nitrocellulose (guncotton) and glycerol trinitrate

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(nitroglycerine).(MFSD (1-7))

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The picture of
the hands is an actual sketch from a detective who did a gunshot residue test on someone's
hands, where the little black dots are is the GSR and that will prove that the owner of those
hands have shot a gun recently before the test.
Investigators and scientist have also found that humans teeth alignment leaves a very
distinctive difference from each other. During a murder case if the body has any bone left more
than likely the teeth will be there too. Teeth are on of the strongest bones in your body and it has
been proven that teeth are the last to decompose. One of forensic sciences strangest pieces of
incriminating evidence involved the crimes of Ted Bundy, one of historys most infamous serial
killers. His modus operandi was to violently bludgeon an innocent victim to a helpless state, and

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then strangle her to death. After his capture, he confessed to having killed over 30 women,
although many believe that his actual body count was over 100. Despite the blatant savagery of
his crimes, Bundy was a highly intelligent man. He was able to skirt the law, and was not found
guilty throughout 10 years of questioning. However, one piece of evidence proved beyond a
shadow of a doubt that Bundy was indeed responsible for the heinous murders. He was found
guilty based on dental matches to bite marks he left on the buttocks of one of his victims
(MFSD(1-10)). Every single human has there own very unique dental imprint and there very
own distinctive fingerprint, as well as the physical part of DNA. All three of those has made
forensic science what it is. There are many types of people in this world, so therefor there will be
a lot of different types of crimes. This world is very diverse every single one of us are different.
There are good people and of course there are some bad. But for the bad everyone thinks
different so there are all different types of criminal offenses. Crime is not a good thing but it
just can not be forgot about. There are all different reasons why a crime is committed. Just for
example it could just be the reason of personal gail, people sometimes can't get jobs and steal for
the reason to survive or even because people live in big cities or low poverty areas and all the
residents know is crime therefore they have nowhere to go but crime because that's just how they
grew up. Adrenalin is a big part of crime the fact of being able to break the law then for
whatever extended amount of time try to get away with it is apparently one of the biggest thrills.
Learning how to prevent crime is always the hardest part but there is always danger so you have
to be careful. Crime is one of the biggest issue america has, many believe that a bad family life,

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location of their house, and poverty hold a few of the answers to why an individual becomes
involved in criminal activity. That's not just saying that only people with poor lifestyles
commits all of america's crimes but actually the most wealthy people in america do a lot of the
big business crimes that necessarily wont hurt the streets directly. Mainly most crimes that are
committed are chosen to do as a lifestyle. In order for a crime to occur a person or group has to
have the thought of what crime to commit, the criminal must have the tools or skill in order to do
the crime and then the crime must be acted upon. Everyday crimes are committed but everyday
we are also trying to find ways to prevent criminals from breaking the law. We do things like
install cameras on businesses to prevent them from getting broke into, have undercover police
officers around town daily to observe the people to learn what they can do better in order to
prevent crimes and even just the smallest acts of having a community watch program, just
having signs up saying there is a community watch program will decrease the rate of crime is the
specific area. Whatever we decide to do to try to prevent crimes won't last forever there will
always be someone who tries to get around the new system no matter how good police officers
do their job.
The history of criminal justice is very interesting there will always be new methods on
how to solve crimes and also ways to prevent them. Dated back to the first days with humans on
this earth there has always been some sort of crime in one way or another either for there own
enjoyment or just for personal gain. Every day we try all different methods to solve crimes they

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don't always work but they are usually effective. To up hold future crimes there will always be
more advances in forensic science to help solve and prevent crimes.

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Study.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2015.

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What Is Criminology? - Definition, History & Theories - Video & Lesson Transcript. Study.com.
Web, n.d.,

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