Determination of sex from hand print impression - An inventive tool in forensic science

Anthropometry is a scientific and systematic study of taking various measurements of humans and has been applied extensively in forensic context. One such application is in sex determination from a fragmented arm of an individual, a handprint etc. The current pilot study is aimed at ascertaining the accuracy of the hand dimensions in sex determination using sectioning point method. The study was conducted on Odia population using handprints of 30 participants aged 18–25 years. The obtained sectioning points were 17.37cm for right hand length (RHL) and 7.67cm for right hand breadth (RHB). These values were applied on random participants (other than the earlier 30) of the same population to test the method's accuracy. The sex estimation accuracy rate for RHB ranged 80–100% whereas it was 6080% for RHL. Similar accuracy rate was obtained for the test population when sectioning points from another study (conducted on North and South India) were applied. This indicated the reliability of the hand dimensions, specifically hand breadth, in sex determination. It also suggested not much population variance in hand dimension of Eastern and North or South population.