Fingerprints can be analyzed and matched to specific individuals. And since no one else in the world has the same fingerprints as us, any prominent prints are guaranteed to place a particular individual at the scene. Another defining feature of fingerprints is that they never change, from the day you are born to the day you die, you are stuck with them. So, by analyzing fingerprints found during a crime, we are able to connect a suspect or witness. We now have a database that contains at least 700 million fingerprints. As a means of personal identification, fingerprints were used in place of signatures dating back over thirty-two hundred years, found imprinted on clay tablets that recorded business transactions in ancient Babylon. Modern usage is a form of identification and is just over 100 years old. British colonials in India used fingerprinting to prevent imitation among the natives. Around this time, Sir Francis Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, wrote the first textbook on the subject of fingerprints, and by the turn of the century Scotland Yard had officially adopted the examination of fingerprints as a form of identification. Fingerprinting became widely used in the United States around 1910. Today, most law enforcement agencies have fingerprint laboratories dedicated to identifying individuals based on different fingerprint components. Most states have an identification agency, and the FBI hosts the largest fingerprint collection in the world in its AFIS system. SWGFast stands for Scientifically Working Group on Friction Ridge Analysis. Supported and staffed by thirty or forty identification specialists from the United States and abroad, they have worked to establish standards and guidelines... middle of the paper... while also forming a system that is not determined or judged on how appears a suspicion but instead on a physical identity given to us by evolution. Works Cited Gurdoglanyan, D. (2001) Fingerprints Used in Criminal Investigations. Retrieved April 19, 2014. Abbinanti, CA (1994, January 10) Computers help recognize fingerprints. Retrieved April 20, 2014. Am J Hum Genet. (1976, May) The inheritance of fingerprint patterns. Retrieved April 20, 2014.Watson, Stephanie. “How Fingerprinting Works” March 24, 2008. Retrieved from HowStuffWorks.com. April 25th 2014.