ABSTRACT
Pattern evidence represents one of the largest and oldest of the forensic disciplines. The fundamental tool used in all pattern evidence analyses is comparison, usually of a known sample to a questioned sample, such as a latent fingerprint recovered from a crime scene compared to a record in an IAFIS system. How these comparisons are made may differ, but fundamentally pattern evidence is about comparison. In the next section, we will begin with a discussion of questioned documents, a forensic discipline that has many elements in common with pattern evidence; for example, handwriting can be considered to be a form of pattern evidence. Questioned documents also share many characteristics of trace evidence, so this topic makes for a natural link between pattern and trace evidence.
