Individualization is dead, long live individualization! Reforms of reporting practices for fingerprint analysis in the United States

Abstract

Individualization, the claim to be able to reduce the potential donor pool of a forensic trace to a single source, has long been criticized. This criticism was echoed by a 2009 U.S. National Research Council report, which called such claims unsupportable for any discipline save nuclear DNA profiling. This statement demanded a response from those disciplines, such as fingerprint analysis, that have historically designated ‘individualization’ one of their approved testimonial conclusions. This article analyses three serial responses to this challenge by the U.S fingerprint profession. These responses posited new terms for testimonial reports or modified the definition of individualization. The article argues that these reforms have yet to ‘fix’ individualization and that all three reforms suffered semantic and conceptual difficulties. The article concludes by suggesting that these difficulties may be traced to the insistence on retaining, and somehow justifying, the term and concept ‘individualization’, instead of developing new terms and concepts from a defensible reasoning process.