ABSTRACT
Contrary to the notion of a consolidated national fingerprint database that most current television shows promote, a single comprehensive and searchable database containing all fingerprint files does not exist in the United States. Current fingerprint databases used by the Medical Examiner/Coroner Offices and law enforcement agency communities tasked with forensic identification exist at the local, state, and federal levels and do not always overlap with regard to the information they contain. In addition, not all Medical Examiner/Coroner offices and law enforcement agencies possess the ability to access or search every one of these databases; a fact often unfamiliar to many forensic professionals who lack expertise in fingerprint searching and analysis techniques. If the forensic communities could better understand the strengths and limitations of available antemortem fingerprint databases and take measures to adequately search unidentified postmortem fingerprint records against these databases for humanitarian purposes, identification of postmortem fingerprint records would increase on a nationwide scale (Mulawka & Craig, 2011).
