Examination of Firearms Review: 2007 to 2010 - Interpol

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to review the scientific literature from August 2007
to July 2010. The review is focused on more than 420 published papers. The
review will not cover information coming from international meetings available
only in abstract form.
Fingermarks constitute an important chapter with coverage of the identification
process as well as detection techniques on various surfaces. We note that the
research has been very dense both at exploring and understanding current
detection methods as well as bringing groundbreaking techniques to increase
the number of marks detected from various objects.
The recent report from the US National Research Council (NRC) is a milestone
that has promoted a critical discussion on the state of forensic science and its
associated research. We can expect a surge of interest in research in relation to
cognitive aspect of mark and print comparison, establishment of relevant
forensic error rates and statistical modelling of the selectivity of marks’
attributes.
Other biometric means of forensic identification such as footmarks or earmarks
are also covered in the report. Compared to previous years, we noted a
decrease in the number of submission in these areas. No doubt that the NRC
report has set the seed for further investigation of these fields as well.
We invite the reader to use two levels of reading for the report: a summary level
and a more detailed level. In each subsequent section, if the number of papers
published in a given area is large, the subsection will start with a quick summary
(in italics) followed by a more detailed analysis of the research at hand.
Copyright ©, registered ® and trademark logos were not included in the current
text for better legibility.
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