The different types of gloves.

Forensic experts have been assigning gloveprints from the crime scene to a glove for over a century. The first evidence has been in Germany in 1925. Initially, it was only a matter of assigning leather and textile gloves. The disposable latex gloves used for medical operations in the USA for the first time in 1890 did not yet play a significant role in the event of break-ins. German forensics only became aware of latex household gloves around 1970. The glove market exploded around 1990. All of a sudden, completely new glove creations came onto the world market and with it the use in criminal offenses. The following main groups of gloves have now emerged: • purely textile gloves • coated textile gloves (also dotted gloves) • gloves made of dipping forms • foil gloves • leather or artificial leather gloves • combination gloves of the aforementioned surfaces Until 2006, glove trace comparisons were only carried out in Germany on a case-by- case basis. There hasn‘t been any basic research on gloves. At that time, due to a lack of detailed knowledge, there were occasionally faulty expert opinions. That changed after the research results from a privately conducted pilot project by an engineer and forensic experts from Bremen were published. The manufacturing engineer carried out basic research into the manufacturing techniques of gloves to determine individual and functional characteristics of the glove surfaces. He also developed the anatomical effects of the hand when creating glove prints. A huge problem with the acquisition of information was and is that almost all glove manufacturers are based in Asia. In Germany itself there is only one large manufacturer for gloves: UVEX in Lüneburg.

Examination of gloveprints.

The subject area of gloves is more extensive than that of the shoe marks, because here the different materials and surface types have to be taken into account in a forensic examination. In addition, the hand is much more flexible than a shoe sole, so that the impression behavior is much more complex. A major problem is the creation of comparison tracks. In the case of flexible gloves in particular, features change, the spacing of features or the entire textile structure. The examiner does not have the same hand as the perpetrator and may generate different trace patterns. For this reason, there are different methods for creating comparison tracks which are being trained in Germany. Of course, they are also depended on the glove material or coating material. Usual textile material: cotton, polyester, polyethylene (HDPE, HPPE), polyamide (nylon), spandex / elastomer, aramid, carbon, glass fiber Common coating material: natural latex (NR), nitrile (NBR), polyurethane (PU), polyvinyl chloride (PVC, vinyl), polyvinyl acetate (PVA), chloroprene rubber (neoprene, Baypren), butyl rubber, fluorine rubber (FKM) In the past, the surface of leather gloves always has been considered individual. However, many of the inexpensive leather gloves are made of split leather now. This inferior leather material is given a leather-like structure by large rolls or stamp plates, as desired. These surfaces can also be found in the same places on other gloves, so that we cannot speak about individuality. The students are also trained in leather production and must be able to recognize the differences between split leather and grain leather/shagreen. According to an empirical investigation, gloveprints should be secured with gelatin foil and not with a transparent adhesive foil. The qualities achieved with the gelatin foil are better.

Gloveprint investigations.

The comparative investigation of gloveprints takes place in exactly the same way as, for example, a shoeprint examination. The gloveprint is first examined with regard to its evaluability. If the gloveprint is at least sufficiently suitable, it can be used for a comparative investigation. The next step is the comparison with the reference sample collection. So far, this comparison only exists in Bremen, but will also be possible in Lower Saxony in 2021 by taking over Bremen‘s database. The third step is a comparison with the crime scene database, i.e. a search for similar glove patterns from other crime scenes. If there are matches, they are combined into a series. The comparative investigation is carried out almost exclusively in the comparison process. Due to the unequal hand shape of the investigator to the perpetrator, the coverage procedure is rarely suitable. Individualizing features from the glove surface are sought and compared with similar features in the gloveprint. Comparisons are shown as examples in the following pictures. In the comparison work it is very important to know what individual structures are and which patterns can be found repeatedly in similar models. A major advantage of some types of gloves has been the fact that the production process in Asia is relatively unclean so that many components stick to the surface of the glove. Different material thicknesses can also be determined with certain types of gloves. Very important: Identification is also possible with disposable gloves (latex, nitrile, vinyl). Further black box tests will have to be carried out over the next few years to solidify the German expertise

The history of gloveprints

In 1925, the German district judge Mr. Sommer from Bad Godesberg reported about gloveprints of textile and leather gloves in a criminal case. In 1952, Beltran F. Santamaria wrote in the International Criminal Police Review about the identification of gloveprints by gloves which are made of skins ( Traces of Gloves ). In 1955, the Swedish crime technicians Arne Svensson and Otto Wendel also deal with gloveprints in their book 'Crime Detection - Modern Methods of Criminal Investigation'. In 1975, the Englishman Gerald Lambourne wrote an article about ' Glove Print Identification - A new technique' in the Police Journal. In 1987 the German experts for formtracks Günter Kurras, Winfried Marquardt, Rainer Schill published the book „Material Evidence“ in Berlin, which describes traces of several types of gloves. In 1988, the Englishman Gerald Lambourne published another article about Glove Print Identification in the Journal of Forensic Identification In 2002, the German expert for technical formtracks Matthias Braune taught at the University of Public Administration in Bremen about the possibility of identifying gloveprints. From this point, gloveprints are increasingly being secured in Bremen for a comparative investigation. From 2005 onwards he started various empirical studies on all gloves and gloveprints in his private expert office . Since 2006 there has been a private collection of gloves in Bremen, which is accessible to the State Criminal Police Office of Bremen. In 2008, The Telegraph published an article about the English dactyloscopist Liane Marsh, in which Derby's policy uses glove prints to catch criminals. Since 2012, the field of gloveprints has been a permanent component of the central German expert training at the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA IZ). In 2015, the forensic engineer Matthias Braune gave a lecture at the German Symposium for shoeprints in Potsdam about the progress in the field of gloveprints and the training of expert candidates. Experts from the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland were also present. In 2016 and 2017, the German Matthias Braune published several articles about gloveprints in the German magazine ' Die Kriminalpolizei ' in order to sensitize the German police base even more. In 2019, the State Criminal Police Office of Bremen developed a classification system for gloveprints in addition to the federal German ‚Johannisthaler-System‘ for shoe prints, which was developed in Brandenburg about 1995.