use of science and technology to investigate and establish facts in criminal or civil courts

of law.” The use of forensics has been used to aid the investigations of crimes for over a

century. Although investigating crime scenes is not exactly the same as it used to be in

the beginning, investigators still use the basics but have just added the help of science to

more accurately prove a suspect. Forensic science is a valuable aid in assisting both the

police and the courts in bringing the accused to justice by evidence such as fingerprints,

DNA, firearms, shoeprints, forensic psychiatry, and polygraph testing.

In around1750 B.C, people in Babylon used finger prints to sign their identity on clay tablets. The first time ink prints were used in China around the year 220, fingerprints became a forgotten item. This all changed in the late 1850s when Sir William Herschel demanded laborers to sign contracts with fingerprints. Eventually as year went by fingerprints became known as unique to everyone and became more used during crime scene investigation in the early 1900s. Fingerprints are made of ridges on the upper skin

of crimes with great regularity. For this reason they have long been studied by police and crime laboratory personnel. There is no doubt that a comparison of a shoe trace found at the scene of crime obtained from a defendant can be a valuable ink associating the defendant with a crime. The question that is more difficult to answer is whether a particular shoe trace can be positively identified as having been made by a specifific item of footwear. Even though there is no recognized "science" of footwear comparisons, it has been widely accepted by law enforcement as well as by the courts that this kind of identifications can be made when adequate evidence is available. The science of footwear investigations is evolving now, since more research groups are working on shoeprints.

Forensic psychiatry is a medical subspecialty that includes research and clinical practice in the many areas in which psychiatry is applied to legal issues. While some forensic psychiatrists may specialize exclusively in legal issues, almost all psychiatrists may, at some point, have to work within one of the many areas in which the mental health and legal system overlap. AAPL welcomes both the forensic specialist and the general psychiatrist who seeks information and professional support in those domains in which psychiatry an the law share a common boundary. These include: violence, criminal responsibility, competence, civil and criminal, child custody and visitation, psychic injury, mental disability, malpractice, confidentiality, involuntary treatment, correctional psychiatry, juvenile justice, ethics and human rights.

on hands and feet of all people and some animals. These ridges make lines of different sizes and forms. They are “permanent” in that they are formed in the fetal stage and remain the same throughout lifetime, barring disfiguration by scarring, until sometime after death when decomposition sets in. Fingerprints do change, but the changes can be explained (flexibility from the skin, growing, a dirty finger, scarring, a wound, or a disease of the skin). They are “unique” in that no two fingerprints are the same or are identical in their ridge characteristic arrangement. Many people ask if identical twins have the same prints, the answer is no. Although they have the same DNA they finger prints are completely different. A print is not only made of a collection of lines but all the lines together make a special figure, and the figures are not as different from each other as one might assume. There are about seven different types as shown below:

Imperfections in the surface of the interior of the barrel leave striations on the projectiles. Striations have the potential to be consistently reproduced in a unique pattern on every bullet that passes down the barrel of a firear

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