Our Year 12 Criminology students have been learning about different techniques for obtaining crime scene prints this week. In the lesson we attended they learnt about three types of prints – patent, latent and plastic – and then put their crime scene investigator hats on to record and analyse different prints.
Patent: these are prints that can be seen with the naked eye. An example that the students looked at were ink fingerprints. They helped each other to record their individual sets of fingerprints, before analysing them for distinguishing features with a magnifying glass.
Latent: these are prints that cannot be seen with the naked eye. In the lesson, the students transferred a fingerprint to a glass or their phone, before using baby powder to dust and identify the print and then tape to lift and record the print. They were then able to use ultraviolet light to examine the prints.
Plastic: these are prints that leave an impression in another material, for example bootprints. The plan is to record the students’ own shoe prints in Plaster of Paris in a later lesson but for today, they used plasticine to capture the vein print on the heel of their hands.
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