The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department released a video Thursday exploring their long history of using fingerprint technology to fight crime, dating back before the FBI.

Advances in fingerprint technology have shaped the way the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has fought crime and identified criminals for over 100 years, according to officials.

In 1903, the William West-Will West Case at Leavenworth Prison, Kansas changed the way inmates were classified and identified, causing ripples that would affect law enforcement worldwide, including the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

Two inmates, Will West and William West, were reportedly twin brothers and had the same physical measurements and bore a striking resemblance to each other.

Prison administration seemed unable to tell them apart by the traditional methods. Criminals at the time were identified after their initial arrests by using measurements of certain parts of the body in a process known as anthropometry, or the Bertillon System.

Invented in 1882 by Alphonse Bertillion, a French clerk with the Parisian police force, the Bertillon System included measurements such as head length, head width, length of the middle finger, length of the left foot and length of the forearm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.

When the West brothers proved too similar to positively identify via these traditional means in 1903, officials at Leavenworth turned to fingerprinting, which was successful.

Since then, the use of fingerprints in identifying inmates began to rise as a more reliable means of identification, according to officials.

Every person’s fingerprints are detailed, nearly unique and are very difficult to alter. These features make fingerprints prime candidates as long-term markers of human identity.

The LASD started using fingerprints in 1915, a full 10 years before the FBI, and then-Los Angeles County Sheriff John C. Cline requested authority to hire a full-time fingerprint and photo deputy at the County Jail.

In December of the same year, the LASD Bureau of Identification was established. An interchange of fingerprint cards with local city agencies initiated the beginning of the bureau’s fingerprint file collection.

In 1991, Live Scan, an inkless method of electronic fingerprinting, was introduced at the LASD. The fingerprints are now electronically transmitted to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for booking and/or completion of a criminal record check.

Since January 1, 2000, in California, digitizing the fingerprints has enabled the electronic transfer of the fingerprint image data along with personal descriptor information to computers at the DOJ instantly, instead of the days required to send hard copy fingerprint cards through the mail.

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