How do police find and use fingerprints to catch criminals?

Fingerprints left at the scene of a crime are called latent prints, as in "present, but unseen." Fingerprints are created by the oil on your fingertips being pressed on to a surface, leaving an impression of the ridges and whorls in your skin. read more

Most criminals think they can lie their way out of the police station. Police expect the suspect to lie initially. That is alright, as long as he starts talking. read more

Even identical twins have different fingerprints. Police officers use fingerprints to identify defendants by comparing prints found at a crime scene with prints already in police files. (Today, the FBI has a collection of prints that numbers in the millions.) People's fingerprints can be on file for a variety of reasons. read more