Here is a link to a video clip discussing a study of fingerprint identification.

http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~id/bbc.html

I am interested in public perceptions of fingerprint analysis as “incontrovertible science,” a process that is irrefutably accurate in many people’s minds and is often used as a (or THE) key piece of evidence in a criminal trial. Sturken and Cartwright suggest that “the photographic image has often been seen as an entity stripped of intentionality, through which the truth can be told without mediation or subjective distortion. Yet, as we have seen, photographic images are highly subjective cultural and social artifacts that are influenced by the range of human belief, bias, and expression” (280). While fingerprint evidence is not quite the same thing as photography, there is a sense that the images the “experts” are analyzing are uniquely truthful – that is, that trained professionals can accurately determine matches between fingerprints simply by looking at them. Dr. Dror suggests, though, that the same contextual factors that Sturken and Cartwright suggest influence our viewing and interpreting of images also apply to this “science.” His study calls into question, therefore, the widespread use of fingerprint evidence in criminal trials. Most fingerprint experts working with law enforcement go into their tasks with some idea of whether or not they are supposed to want fingerprints to match. Dr. Dror’s work suggests that the knowledge that confirming matches will lead to the convictions of alleged criminals likely influences the way in which the “experts” view the fingerprint images and might lead them to confirm matches when, under different circumstances with the same prints, they might make a different judgment. This conclusion seems to confirm the statement from the reading that “images do not embody truth, but always rely on context and interpretation for their meanings” (290).

The question, it seems to me, must be whether or not fingerprint evidence and other visual “scientific” processes should be promoted as almost infallible by our legal system. Also, given our Foucault discussions over the last couple of weeks, is this idea in any way related to surveillance? Does race play a part in the subjectivity of this process? Do we have other viable alternatives to fingerprint analysis?