Role of Handwriting In Crime Investigation

Everyone probably knows that handwriting is unique. Even at an early age, when a child is just beginning to hold a pen in his hands, his letters and drawings already have individual distinctiveness. When a person is growing up, handwriting is becoming more and more stable. Our mood, health, and many other factors can affect the quality of our lettering, but every symbol we write is only one of a kind. There is even a special science that studies the features of handwriting – graphology. Handwriting experts, also called forensic document examiners, are called upon to verify the accuracy of a document or its signature.

Handwriting is a whole system of movements that is typical of each writer. It is based on the motor-writing skills of a person. In the process of investigating a crime, every detail is important. Quite often, experienced criminals do not leave traces when committing a crime. Offenders wear gloves, carefully monitor the situation, have bandages on their faces or put on masks. In such cases, the police have problems identifying the perpetrator. If the crime involves forgery, the investigator must search for hand-written papers. Forgery of the date, signature, or any number, letter, or sign is not rare, so the investigator must search for hand-written papers then. Modern opportunities and facilities significantly reduce the number of handwritten texts. Documents in electronic form or printed are assigned almost 80% of the total document flow in the country. This is obviously convenient, fast, and technological, but in case of a crime, it makes it difficult to conduct an investigation.

The examination of documents and handwriting in modern criminology is one of the principal and urgent tasks. Taking into account the nature of the offenses committed, investigators and operatives often seek to find and verify necessary handwritten documents to establish relevant facts and events. All sorts of notes in handwritten documents can be made with ink, pencil, copy paper, or ballpoint pen. Inscriptions made with chalk, a piece of lime, paint, pointed objects, etc. can be found on various items and materials. Manuscripts found at the scene of an accident or seized during a search, (including a personal search), may be short or lengthy, in original or in modified handwriting. Changes in handwriting can result from the conditions of writing or the writer's intentions (cursive masking, writing a text in block letters or with the left hand, using an unusual writing tool, etc.).

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Handwriting expertise is one of the types of personal identification. It is based on the study of handwriting features displayed in handwritten papers. To carry out handwriting examinations the free, conditional-free and experimental samples of handwriting should be accessible for the examiner. Free handwriting samples (signatures) are manuscripts (signatures) made by a prosecuted person. They don’t deal with the case being examined and had been written before the case was filed. Such samples can include personal and official correspondence, autobiographies, questionnaires, statements, notes, etc.

Conditional-free samples are obtained within the framework of the ongoing inquiry and are often provided in criminal cases. The prosecuted person (suspect, accused) signs a set of protocols, interrogations, without thinking that the investigator will use them for carrying out examination. There two ways of obtaining experimental handwriting samples: by dictation or by offering the suspect to write a document (an autobiography, a statement, etc.). If the examination of papers written with the left hand is required, special handwritten samples made by the suspect's left hand should be obtained.

If an expert examination of documents done in foreign languages is necessary, the investigator or court must determine in which language the manuscript was written, and establish which expert institution has specialists to carry out examination. To solve this issue, the investigator (court) should take into account the advice of a linguistic specialist. Knowledge of the language in which the document under study is made is one of the conditions of the expertise.

When examining manuscripts are made after a large gap in time, the expert must have information about the age, education, profession, writing practice of a particular person, the diseases that can affect the handwriting, in order to properly assess different features of handwriting discovered in the course of the study. Experimental samples, as well as free ones, should be compared in all parameters to the object under study. One of the advantages of experimental samples is the fact that they can be selected in conditions as close to those in which the analyzed text is expected to have been performed.

The success of the examination depends on the qualification of the forensic document examiner, his experience, and on how well the materials for the examination are provided [4]. The conclusion of a handwriting expert can become one of the proofs in a civil or criminal dispute, and if a mistake was made by a specialist at some stage, this will directly affect the final result of the expert opinion.

Thus, it would be safe to say that forensic handwriting expertise makes a great contribution to the strengthening of the rule of law and justice though it is one of the most complex types of forensic research. Undoubtedly, the current level of forensic handwriting expertise development allows us to practically solve a wide range of problems of identification, diagnostic and situational nature. Being indispensable means of effective investigation, forensic handwriting expertise helps significantly in solving crimes.

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