Reading fingerprints to foresee crime

Ahmedabad: One might have seen sleuths searching for fingerprints in crime scenes to lift the unique biological marker that can link the crime to the criminal. But what about a system by which a potential criminal can be identified - with those same fingerprints- even before the crime is committed?

The idea may appear to lie only in the domain of futuristic films like "Minority Report", a Tom Cruise starrer in which a "PreCrime" wing of the police, aided by foreknowledge, thwarts crime. But such powers are coming soon in real life: researchers at the Raksha Shakti University (RSU) are working to develop a prototype for identifying fingerprint patterns most frequently associated with anti-social behaviours and psychological disorders.

The researchers have already analyzed nearly 1,500 fingerprints; 245 were collected from the Sabarmati Central Jail and 1,200 from the city-based Hospital of Mental Health (HMH). Other data sets are still being analyzed. The team is hopeful of producing a pilot report by December this year and take the number of samples from convicts to 1,000 for creating a better prototype. The researchers say that a much larger sample size is required to generalize results but it would be a good start.

Vikas Sahay, the in-charge director-general of the RSU, said that the correlation of fingerprints with brain functions can greatly aid in boosting security. "Two parallel researches on fingerprints is going on in the context of crime and psychology," he said. "The final goal of the project is to develop clear indicators by which a person's fingerprints can be screened with an inexpensive method, and remedies can be provided early."

Dr S L Vaya, the R&D director at the RSU, said that a number of studies across the globe have tried to associate dermatoglyphic patterns (fingerprints) with neuro-development and pathology to understand phenomena ranging from crime to health. "Fingerprints start developing when a child is still in the womb and a number of factors are responsible for the process," she said. "It doesn't mean that people are born with specific intentions. It means that they are more vulnerable to certain conditions, which factors such as family life and society can aggravate." Researchers have also associated specific patterns with mental disorders that sometimes overlap with crime.

"Some mental disorders are genetic and manifest at a certain age," said Dr Ajay Chauhan, the medical superintendent of HMH. "The project can help identify indicators and can identify behavioural problems."