A forensic study of ethnicity and sex differences in fingerprint patterns in a Malaysian sub-population
Fingerprint is one of the most common evidence found at a crime scene. Owing to the uniqueness of fingerprint, it is useful for suspect identification. Typically, the questioned fingerprint is of limited contribution due to blurriness of the minutia or absence of potential suspect. However, it...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Pusat Perubatan Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2021
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17440/1/9_ms0455_pdf_97938.pdf http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17440/ https://www.medicineandhealthukm.com/toc/16/1 |
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| Institution: | Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | Fingerprint is one of the most common evidence found at a crime scene. Owing
to the uniqueness of fingerprint, it is useful for suspect identification. Typically, the
questioned fingerprint is of limited contribution due to blurriness of the minutia or
absence of potential suspect. However, it is still useful if the ethnicity or sex of the
questioned fingerprint could be inferred to narrow down the scope of searching
of suspect. Therefore, this study aims to examine sexual and ethnic differences in
fingerprint patterns among the three major ethnic groups in Malaysia, i.e. Malays,
Chinese and Indians. In total, 2000 plain fingerprints were collected from all the ten
fingers of 200 Malaysians (i.e. 99 males and 101 females). Each of the three ethnic
groups was represented by at least 60 subjects. Descriptive statistics and hypothesis
test were performed to assess the sexual and ethnic variability of fingerprint patterns.
In addition, simple correspondence analysis was also conducted to support the
descriptive and inferential statistics. By considering fingerprint patterns in all the
ten fingers, loop was the most frequent pattern in Malays (23.0%) and Indians
(23.2%), while Chinese (13.9%) showed slightly higher frequency of whorl than
Malays (9.6%) and Indians (10.3%). The relative distribution of fingerprint patterns
of male was similar to that of female. In conclusion, fingerprint patterns could be
used to infer the ethnicity rather than the sex of a suspect in the Malaysian context. |
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