Review: Police Procedure and Administration
| Published date | 01 April 1931 |
| Date | 01 April 1931 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X3100400218 |
312 THE POLICE JOURNAL
tions been printed on smooth paper, especially the many examples of small
letters. Several of the similesstrike one as bring somewhat trivial,
but
there
is one point to which attention should be called. In his opening chapters
Captain Quirke seems to be of two minds. Over and over again he makes
it apparent that he is a graphologist in the old and accepted meaning of the
word. A single instance will suffice.
'But,'
he says,
'in
the youngest
children we still encounter the mean and the generous, the lying and the
truthful, the violent and the passive, and their traits show as clearly in the
juvenile hand as in any other.'
He states, however, when it comes to dealing with handwriting in Court,
that no evidence can be justifiably used except that obtained from a physio-
logical analysis, that is from a consideration of the formation of letters and
words like quality, skill, hiatus, and so on.
Captain Quirke nevertheless believes in the usefulness of psychological
analysis and devotes Chapter IV to it, though in the opening sentences he
says
that'
the psychological analysis of handwriting can have no place in
these pages.'
It
might be conceded that any kind of analysis to which two
handwritings could be subjected, might help in their identification,
but
surely
in the present state of knowledge it is not right to maintain, as Captain
Quirke appears to do, that a witness who from the examination of a manu-
script cannot ' form a portrait of the personality of the
writer'
is entitled
neither to hearing nor credence.
POLICE
PROCEDURE AND
ADMINISTRATION.
By C. C. H.
MORIARTY.
(Butterworth &Co., Ltd.), 5s. net.
MR.
MORIARTY,
the Assistant Chief Constable of Birmingham, who recently
wrote
Police
Law, has now produced this useful and carefully arranged book,
which explains in detail the rights and duties of police officers. Sir Leonard
Dunning, in his Foreword, expresses the hope that it will be of value, not
only to policemen in helping them to realize the why and wherefore of their
appointment,
but
also to the general public in preventing misunderstandings,
and emphasizing the point that police officersinterfere with individual action
because of the harm which is done or may be done to the rights of others.
The
book gives a good general idea of the whole career of a police officer.
It
is of course impossible to deal with '
The
Detection of
Crime'
in
sixteen pages,
but
Mr. Moriarty gives useful hints. On two subjects-finger-
prints and
footprints-he
is on controversial ground. As to the former he
says:
'The
fingerprints found on any article at the scene of a crime may be
compared with those of known persons and thus the identity of a criminal
may be discovered.'
This
is true,
but
a great many other tricks can be
played with marks which show a reasonable amount of detail (see
Mr.
Battley's book on SingleFingerprints). Again on page 60 Mr. Moriarty says:
,Fingerprint evidence is good evidence and every effort should be made to
find finger impressions in a case of serious crime.' This may be taken by
some, either not too intelligent or not too eager for work, to mean that there
is no need for much care in searching for marks in what appears to be an
unimportant case.
It
must be remembered that without material the finger-
print expert can be of no assistance, and that every effort should be made to
provide material unless it is obvious that sufficient evidence to prove the case
IS available elsewhere. On the other hand it is of great importance to avoid
causing unnecessary trouble to experts who have already an abundance of
work on their hands.
As to footmarks, it is a pity that Mr. Moriarty should come down quite
definitely in favour of the use of a mixture of resin and paraffin wax for the
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