Wednesday Open Line


The first criminal case in the U.S. in which fingerprint evidence alone won conviction occurred this month in New York City in 1911. Burglary suspect Caesar Cella, alias Charles Crispi, was undone by prints identified by detective Joseph Faurot. The first known crime case solved by fingerprint matching occurred in 1898 in India, but the unique pattern of each person’s fingerprints had been known since ancient China. The Census Bureau’s national prisoner statistics program reports the federal and state prison population to the U.S. Justice Department. As of the year 2014, such prisons held well over 1.5 million people, with just over 210,000 in federal penitentiaries. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.