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What Are You Doing To Help?
(The following paper appeared in the June 1986 issue of THE PRINT)
An Opinion I'm sure you have heard them all before. How many layers of skin are there in the epidermis? Name them. How many latent to inked print comparisons have you done? How many times have you testified in court to your findings? What books or publications have you read regarding fingerprints? Please name some of the prominent authors in the field of fingerprint science. What classes or formal training have you had in the field of fingerprint identification? Why do you think you are the best applicant for the job? Can you answer these questions? These are the type of questions you could hear on the witness stand when you are testifying in court on a fingerprint identification. And, of course, they are the types of questions heard while taking an oral board for a job interview. Maybe you could answer all of the listed questions and many more, but how about the employee in your office with only a year or two on the job? I recently had the occasion to be on an oral board for a fingerprint specialist position offered in a city in a neighboring county. Questions like those listed above were asked of the applicants. Most of the applicants could not answer them. You may say these types of questions have no bearing on the quality of the applicant's comparison abilities. In one sense you are correct, but there has to be a testing procedure, some way to grade or screen the applicants to find the one best qualified for the position. Since everyone knows this, whether you agree with it or not, shouldn't you help those employees in your office train for this ordeal? One of the applicants whose current job entailed fingerprint classification and who had two years experience in a moderately large city had never heard of the FBI's publication, The Science of Fingerprints. Another applicant with six years experience in a very large agency was not allowed to write any official report to the identification of inked to inked prints. He and other employees of his classification were required to turn them over to a supervisor. He had no training in latent development or comparisons.
Most of the applicants had never heard of the International Association for Identification, the FBI's field training classes, the Institute of Applied Science, or the IAI certification program. We now have lasers to help develop latent prints and computers to help us search the files to identify them, so why do we insist on keeping our trainees in the dark? Shouldn't we pass on the written information in The Journal of Forensic Sciences, Identification News (now Journal of Forensic Identification), and Fingerprint Whorld? Shouldn't we encourage them to take classes or do research on their own? When was the last time you took time to discuss theory or technical methods with your employees? There are job openings in the field going unfilled because there are no qualified people. Of greater concern are the people doing the comparisons when they are actually unqualified to do so. The IAI's attempt at the certification program is definitely a step in the right direction, but how are the trainees going to pass the test without special training? Whether or not you encourage your employees to apply for certification, you still must show them the way to become competent examiners. It is true, some people lack the talent and/or skill to become proficient and they should be directed to another field of training. But the employees who show promise should be given every opportunity to succeed. Employment advertisements always ask for fully trained professionals with a couple years experience. Where does that experience come from? It comes from you taking someone who is interested in the field and training them. Yes, then they leave to go somewhere else for a better paying job and you have to start all over again. But isn't that what it's all about? The more well--trained fingerprint examiners there are working with the computers and the lasers, the closer we are to our goal of identifying people and solving crimes.
(Editor --— This article may be a little dusty, but the principles remain true. And from the same issue of THE PRINT the following quote from Dactylography Magazine, 1922 appeared “...it would not only be ridiculous but utterly unthinkable to attempt to conduct any police department, no matter how small, without a complete fingerprint bureau of identification.”)
This article was reprinted in “THE PRINT” |