If a person mutilates it's fingertips to get rid of his fingerprints, are they going to be gone forever?

Question

I am referring to a criminals who mutilate their fingerprints after committing a crime to avoid getting identified. Is this act going to remove their fingerprints forever? Or are they going to come back?

Answer 1

Your body will attempt to repair any damage done to your body, even if it is self-inflicted. Your DNA, also known as your genetic code, remembers how you are supposed to look, even after an injury. So, criminals that try to remove the tips of their fingers to avoid a fingerprint match will be quite surprised, in a few months, when they realize that their fingerprints have returned.



There are exceptions to this, when latent scarring, or amputation is used to permanently disfigure the hand or fingers. However, just because fingerprints don't always work doesn't mean other evidence collected at a crime scene won't lead back to the criminal. There's still blood, skin cells, and other evidence that can still be traced. Real life CSI is way better than what you see on TV.

Answer 2

The second answer down is the best one. Short of severe damage, fingerprints will return. If the damage is extremely severe, the prints may be disfigured and mutilated to the point that they are no longer recognizable. However, the mutilation will generally create a new pattern which is even more distinctive than most prints. There are a few cases of criminals being caught becasue of mutilated (highly-recognizable) prints. Though I don't remember the exact cases, you can read about one or two in this book on forensics and case history: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813120918/ref=wl_it_dp/104-9786249-1633532?ie=UTF8&coliid=I2WJZ7ZTYXGAQ4&colid=KL9ZZQ67AWSN

Answer 3

I sliced off a piece of skin on the end of my left pointer finger once. It went down to at least the dermis, bled like a motherf--er. There is a scar there a roughly circular gap a millimeter wide there where the ridges either vanish or are sort of pinched in towards the gap.



It would depend on the degree of mutilation it might be possible to do it temporarily or permanently depending on how deeply the skin was damaged. I doubt it would erase all the ridges, just enough to thwart ready identification. Frankly the damage involved would be seriously dangerous in and of itself.



Trying to avoid touching that one part of my pointer to anything was virtually impossible and always painful. Doing your whole hands would be crippling and excruciatingly painful in the short term. It would arouse instant curiosity in anyone you met making it difficult to maintain the anonymity needed to hide from whatever dirty deed.

Answer 4

Short of causing enough damage to permenently scare the skin, then no. A friend lost most of the skin on his fingers due to an accident involving some very strong acid. When thankfully his skin eventually healed, his fingerprints were identical to what they were before.



Curious but there ya go :)

Answer 5

Not really, no. Unless they actually hacked off their fingertips. Most criminals will burn the prints off with chemicals, but it's only temporary. I actually had several mild chemical burns over a short period of time and a couple of my fingerprints became much less pronounced... They're back now.

Answer 6

Remember there are like 128 points on the finger print that they can match. They do not match the whole thing or nothing so is would be very unlikely that short of cutting them off you could damage them enough to evade identification.

Answer 7

no , they would stay forever, even though they are going to be a little different, but every human has VERY different fingerprints, its a pattern of the skin's cells.

Answer 8

Yes, but the new pattern will be even more distinctive than the old one, and will of course go on record as soon as the person is apprehended for an offense.

Answer 9

Salam I do agree with you that there is no a single person who has the same fingerprint. It is the evidence how perfect the creation of Allah subhanallah masya allah

Answer 10

They would have to do big damage to their whole hand to avoid being tracked by prints.



If they did, they could become a politician.

Answer 11

I don't know, in the movies it seems as though the answer is yes.

In real life, I think the dna is the key