Child Pageant TV Shows: A Pedophile's Heaven

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by Stacy Dittrich

Clearly, I’m behind the times on this one. Many arguments have been waged against airing child beauty pageants on television -- or so I discovered after a little digging. Since I don’t watch much TV, I was flipping through the channels one day, and I came upon a small blonde child wearing more makeup than I've ever worn in my life. I assumed the show was a another documentary on the JonBenét Ramsey case.

Then I realized I was watching WE tv — which I believe stands for women’s entertainment. I was so far from being entertained I don’t know where to begin. The words "appalling" and "nauseating" come to mind.

Within a matter of seconds, I watched a mother grab her 5-year-old by the chin and force the entire contents of a Pixie Stick down her throat -- to keep the girl “energized.” The whining, exhausted, crying child looked like a pimped-up version of an American Girl doll. I was horrified, actually. As tiny contestant after tiny contestant paraded across the stage, shaking her hips and blowing kisses at the crowd, a sinking, disparaging feeling came over me. With my years of experience pursuing and dealing with pedophiles, I suddenly realized they've found heaven on Earth in shows like “Little Miss Perfect” — right there in the comfort of their own living rooms.

The parents of the little girls only exacerbate this. At one point, I watched as a mother inserted a “flipper” in her daughter’s mouth. Apparently, this is pageant-speak for special dentures. As the mother beamed and spun her daughter towards the father for approval, the child smiled — blinding the camera with the overly white mouthpiece. The father’s response summed up the show perfectly. The unfortunate part is that he was smiling as he spoke.

“She looks like a child prostitute,” he said.

Well, then. By all means, pimp her out in every living room across America, buddy. The pedophiles will love you that much more for it when it's your daughter they picture in their sexual fantasies. With luck, maybe she won’t be one of the unfortunate children they decide to pursue in real life.

I thought back to several of the cases of extreme child pornography I'd investigated. In these crimes, the pedophiles had stumbled onto a South American syndicate that distributed videotapes featuring young girls just for men like them. These tapes didn't show full-on kiddie porn. But in them, young girl between the ages of four and nine years old paraded around sensually for the camera. Despite their sadly and highly inappropriate behavior, the girls were clothed in most of the movies. In others, the film show them undress down to their underwear and play with their dolls.

If memory serves, one family made a series of movies -- featuring their daughter -- titled “Brazilian Lolita.” Obviously, her family knew they were onto something when pedophiles from around the world paid them for these tapes. And, in their eyes, were they really doing anything wrong? Their daughter was dressed, not engaging in sex acts, and merely flirting in front of camera.

Pedophiles, as disturbed as they are, will resort to anything to fulfill their fantasies and sexual urges. I've seen homes with stacks upon stacks of tabloid magazines. Ripped out and taped to their walls were pages featuring child actors and actresses; and newspaper clippings of young boys in snowball fights, playing t-ball, and swimming at the local pool. They also favor LL Bean kids and JC Penney children’s catalogs, to name just a few. Their fantasies demand the image of that young, beautiful, innocent child to be permanently embedded in their minds.

One suspect in particular, who openly volunteered his daily rituals to me, noted: “I’m in my own home, and I’m not hurting anyone.” True. But if you ask any expert in the field of sexual behaviors, it will be crystal clear that such rituals only satisfy them for so long. They escalate and escalate until the image no longer does the trick. They want and need to touch, smell, and feel the real child. It’s some pretty scary stuff.

A prime example is the recent case of a murdered, 7-year-old Florida girl, Somer Thompson. Her alleged murderer, Jared Harell, 24, stuffed his computer with child porn. We don't know how long Harrell had been viewing it, but my instincts tell me it was likely years. He probably finally tired of settling for images and acted out his fantasy in flesh and blood.

We're talking about images of young girls dressing and acting like grown women while bounding around a stage. What immediately comes to mind when viewing something like this photo of JonBenet Ramsey (at left)?

Whether you’re on the Team Intruder or Team John Ramsey side of JonBenet theories doesn’t matter. The bottom line is that when JonBenet performed in child pageants, it clearly caught someone’s attention.

Now, with shows like “Little Miss Perfect” or a similar show, “Toddlers and Tiaras,” on TLC (which ironically stands for The Learning Channel) — we've made pedophiles' pursuit of their fantasies that much easier. No longer must they physically travel to child pageants to scope out the young girls for their fantasies. No longer do they have to do the tedious work of finding out the child’s name or where she lives. “Brazilian Lolita?” Sorry, you’re out of business! WE tv and TLC conviniently provide the entertainment, the girls' names and hometowns, and their parents’ information.

The best part for the pedophile: it's completely legal. It's on cable, for crying out loud.

WE tv, although still airing “Little Miss Perfect” and using it to top the list of shows on its website, made a soggy attempt to appease people like myself who are outraged by the show:

"Documentaries are an integral part of WE tv programming. These series provide an inside look into a variety of topics, allowing viewers to form their own opinions. The programming in no way represents or implies a position by the network on any of the content."

This disclaimer is right at the top of the “Little Miss Perfect” web page. I’m sorry, but if the program is on your network, if you bought it and you air it, then in my opinion it certainly does represent your network. Still, I’ll give a slight nod to WE tv for even addressing the issue.

TLC did not.

Seriously, folks. Are we so desperate for reality-TV programming that this is the kind of show we have to resort to? Aren’t there enough other reality-show ideas floating around that don't put little girls at risk? We can't begin to identify all the pedophiles nationwide, but we continue to be vigilant, doing our best to protect our children. Do we really have to hand pedophiles their sick fantasies and evil acts on a silver platter, too?

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Blood on Her Hands

by Lisa R. Cohen

There is blood on the hands of Laura Silsby. Whether she intended it or not, when she led a band of Americans from Haiti toward the Dominican Republic border in a bus filled with Haitian "orphans," she set off a series of unintended consequences that left other children dead.

Silsby may have had the best of intentions. She may have been following the voice of God. Or she may have been a religious zealot who told desperate Haitian parents one thing, then pulled a fast one by taking their kids away to have them adopted by "good Christian families." Will we ever know for sure?

Here's what we do know: Following the earthquake's devastation, Laura Silsby headed up a contingent of 10 adults, most affiliated with one of two Baptist churches, who traveled from Twin Falls, Idaho, to Haiti. According to a mission statement on Silsby's church's website, the group was part of the New Life Children's Refuge (NLCR), a "non-profit Christian ministry dedicated to rescuing, loving and caring for orphaned, abandoned and impoverished Haitian and Dominican children, demonstrating God's love and helping each child find healing, hope, joy and new life in Christ."

Late on Friday night, January 29th, Silsby and her team were arrested at the Dominican border with 33 youngsters, ranging in age from two months to 12 years, their names handwritten on pink tape stuck to their shirts, reportedly on their way to a temporary orphanage.

The Americans claimed to be rescuing abandoned orphans, but the Haitian government didn't see it that way, and they remain in a Haitian jail, accused of kidnapping the children. The ten were seemingly unfazed in the first moments of their arrest, sure that this would all be cleared up soon, and they'd be found to be innocent angels of mercy, intent on saving lives, if not souls. Confidence gave way to shock as the hardscrabble mission turned into an international incident, touching a very raw nerve about the centuries-old exploitation of Haiti's youngest resources.

There has been absolutely no hint that these children were destined to be sexually exploited, as has been historically the case in this impoverished country. In fact, that's just the fate Silsby and her followers are claiming they were trying to keep the children safe from. But the idea that they would be taken from their homeland, wrenched from their identities, to be raised by religious (white) Christians who would save them from their otherwise heathen fates, raises eyebrows. And then, of course, there is the small matter that many of the children rounded up for the "Orphan Rescue Mission" ... weren't orphans after all.

The children, it was learned, came mostly from the town of Calabasse, where some of them were put aboard the bus by their parents or other relatives themselves. Some of the kids later reported they weren't told they were leaving their homes; just going on a vacation, or away to a school.

At the time, the adults were told they could eventually visit their loved ones in the Dominican Republic. Indeed, Silsby told reporters after the arrest that the plan all along was to raise these children in the DR. The group had just signed a lease on a former seaside resort there where they planned to house their charges temporarily, while finessing the long term plan. But critics point to a particular sentence in their mission statement which belies the impression the children would stay close to home:

"We will strive to also equip each child with a solid education and vocational skills as well as opportunities for adoption into a loving Christian family."

What's that about? Maybe Silsby was only planning to apply that last part to the true orphans. But it doesn't really sound like it -- there's that troubling phrase "each child."

Then there's the fuzzy excuse that the paperwork was all but done; that the bus was held up at the border because of one missing document. Not so, claims the DR's Consul General in Port-au Prince, according to a Wall Street Journal interview. He says he met with Silsby before she set out and warned her not only that she didn't have the proper documentation, but that if she tried to go anyway she might be arrested.

In times like this there's always chaos. One person says one thing, another contradicts. But there's a real travesty, besides the fact that this case is distracting attention from the bigger, truly horrific problems facing Haiti a month after the earthquake: the actions of this misguided group have interfered with the work of real rescuers trying to get seriously injured children to much-needed medical help.

According to a New York Times article this week, before the 10 Americans were arrested, private flights out of Haiti airlifting critically ill children to hospitals in the States were running 15 per day. After the arrest, no more than three left in a period of several days. The risk was suddenly too great that these good Samaritans would be arrested too. These weren't children rounded up and enticed onto a bus. These were urgent medical cases. In fact, as of February 8th, when the article appeared, at least 10 children had become worse, or even died awaiting evacuation.

There's no lack of will, or resources -- the planes are there, the pilots are eager to go, and there are hospitals waiting to receive the sick kids. But now, seeing the American missionaries trotted from their makeshift jail cells in and out of court, everyone's understandably gun shy. The detained Americans, one pediatrician at the Haitian airport field hospital told the Times, had moved beyond just a distraction. "For these kids ... it's become the difference between life and death."

There's been talk in recent hours of finally releasing at least some of the detained Americans, although it's unclear if that will mean they're free to return stateside. The children they were transporting have been taken to an Austrian-based orphanage, where apparently efforts are underway to reunite them with their families.

But there's no giving back life to the innocent victims who couldn't get the help they needed, and died waiting for it.

God is watching, Laura Silsby.

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Jazz Age Science Enters Courtroom

by Deborah Blum 

The first week of December 1926 was clouded in fog. The mist lapped along the rivers, muffled the harbors, made eerie the dry creak of boats rubbing against docks in the water. 

Far too early one morning a Brooklyn police officer patrolling along the East River caught a half-glimpse of a man hurrying through the fog.  As the figure neared the edge of a wharf, the officer could see that the man walked slightly bent as he carried a heavy-looking bundle. The patrolman shouted for the man to halt but instead he hastily dropped his burden and kicked it into the river.

The officer called again as the man fled. Together with a hurriedly approaching fellow patrolman, he tackled the fugitive to the ground. But the stranger refused to answer any of their questions. They took him to the station house where, in the sudden brilliance of a lit room, the officers suddenly realized that their captive’s trouser cuffs and socks were sodden with blood. Once they’d pried out his name, they hurried to his apartment.  The kitchen was a scene from a horror movie, complete with bloody cleaver and jagged saw on the table and a woman’s body on the floor.

Half a body, actually. Everything below the waist was missing – and the police now deduced, long lost in the East River.

I’ve had a love-hate reaction to this story ever since I discovered it in the forgotten archives of New York City history. It’s terrible and it’s tragic.  It’s soaked in blood, literally. But it has a really terrific twist at the end. And even more important, it’s a classic story of chemical detective work from a time when forensic science was so new that scientists were a peculiarity in the courtroom.

I’ve been working as a science writer for most of my career, first at newspapers (won a Pulitzer in 1992 for writing about primate research) and as a book author. In the past decade, I’ve published books on the biology of sex differences, on the science of love and affection, and on whether it’s possible to prove life after death. I sound, I know, like someone with a short attention span. Mostly I just like exploring the different ways that science changes our lives, alters our history, explains who we are today.

Of course, when I first started thinking about writing a book about poison and murder it was also because I just found the subject fascinating. I grew up with my mother’s collection of early 20th  century crime fiction: Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Georgette Heyer, Leslie Ford, all of whom found poison to be the most seductive of murder weapons. I liked the idea of trying to catch some of that seductiveness in a book that would also explain the science of how poisons actually work. 

But it wasn’t until I started looking at the early history of forensics that I found a way to tell the story.  My book, "The Poisoner's Handbook," would become the tale of two forgotten scientists – medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler -- from early 20th century New York City who helped launch the science of forensics in the United States and also solved some of the most famous murder cases of their time.

The 1920s was a treasure trove of innovative, dangerous chemistry.  There were compounds created by military innovations of the Great War, by industrial applications, research into new medicines, and the speakeasy culture born with Prohibition, with its smoky jazz clubs and dubious cocktails. Morphine went into teething medicines for infants; opium into routinely prescribed sedatives; arsenic was an ingredient in everything from pesticides to cosmetics.

Against that background, early forensic scientists literally had to invent rules of chemical detection as they went.  Alexander Gettler, for instance, wrote the fundamental paper on cyanide (still cited by the EPA), created the first tests that could prove intoxication at time of death, discovered how to detect chloroform levels in the brain of a dead person, and did some of the fundamental work on the still-dangerous gas carbon monoxide and how it kills us.  He’s still mentioned by experts as “the father of forensic toxicology in the United States.”

The twist on that dismembered body story I mentioned earlier comes from work done by both Gettler and his boss, Charles Norris. As it turns out, it’s not so much a story of death by hacksaw as death by poison. The toxic material in question turns out to be the very lethal gas, carbon monoxide.

Norris was the pathologist on duty the night Brooklyn police discovered the partial body of Anna Frederickson in the apartment of Francisco Travia. By the time Norris arrived at the scene, the police had already charged Travia, a longshoreman, with hacking the woman to death. But Norris, after looking at the body, insisted that they were wrong.

The woman’s face and what was left of her body was flushed an odd cherry red. People who bled to death, he pointed out, tended to be waxy pale. He took the half-body back to the morgue at Bellevue for autopsy and sent tissue and blood samples to Gettler.

If you know carbon monoxide, you know it’s characteristic for people poisoned by the gas to be flushed pink, even after death. Carbon monoxide crowds oxygen out of the blood stream. Its chemistry gives it a more effective grip on blood-borne proteins that normally distribute oxygen.  As the blood is saturated with the by-products of carbon monoxide, a unique chemical reaction causes to become a brighter, pinker color.

Not only does the skin of a carbon monoxide victim become strangely rosy but also internal organs are stained a deep cherry-red. This effect is so persistent that carbon monoxide saturated blood will often remain that startling crimson weeks or even months after death.

Before the Travia case, Gettler had run experiments proving that the body cannot absorb carbon monoxide after death. So when tests showed that Travia’s victim had lethal levels of carbon monoxide in her blood, it was obvious that she had to have absorbed those killing levels while still alive. In other words, she was dead of carbon monoxide poisoning before Travia cut her up.

Faced with the evidence, Travia confessed that he and the victim had been drinking (illegally, since this was during Prohibition) that night. Both had passed out and when he awoke, she was dead. Not realizing that his gas stove was leaky, he was afraid that he’d be suspected of murder. So he decided to make the body disappear, cutting it apart and putting the pieces in the river.

The police refused to accept his explanation or the new strange science of forensics. But when Travia went to trial, the jury believed his story. He was found guilty of illegally dismembering a body and sentenced to a year in prison. If convicted of murder, he would have been destined for the electric chair at Sing Sing prison. The chemical detective work of Norris and Gettler saved his life – and would go on to make forensic toxicology an essential part of solving crimes today. 

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Haleigh: Year Later, Only Questions

by Pat Brown

A year ago today, a little girl named Haleigh Cummings was reported missing at 3:30 in the morning by her father and his underage, live-in girlfriend. They said five-year-old Haleigh somehow vanished from her bed in their Satsuma, Florida, home.

The case remains a train wreck. A year later, Haleigh is still missing, and both her father, Ronald Cummings, and his girlfriend/wife/ex-wife, Misty Croslin, remain suspects in her disappearance.

 There are those who still believe Haleigh will be found, perhaps hidden by her biological mother or sold into a child sex ring. Most, however, believe Haleigh died that night and someone has gotten away with her murder, at least for the past year.

The perplexing question is WHO got away with what? What happened to Haleigh? Did she accidentally ingest and overdose on the drugs Ronald Cummings and Misty Croslin clearly were dealing and/or using? Did someone fail to keep an eye her, leaving her to toddle off  down the path behind the house and drown? Did someone get angry with her and kill her in a rage? Or did drug dealers steal and murder her as some sort of message to Daddy and Misty, his drug-dealing partner in crime?

Some of the facts of the case still remain sketchy, and the police haven’t been exactly forthcoming with details to fill the gaping holes in the story. We know Haleigh was last seen sometime on February 9th, the day before she vanished. We know Ron went to work that evening and Misty, then 17 years old, was allegedly watching five-year-old Haleigh and her two-year-old brother, both Ronald Cummings’s biological children with another woman.

Exactly when Ron went to work and what exact hours he can prove he was there have never been made clear. But, at 3:30 in the morning, Misty Croslin placed a phone call to 911:

"I can't find our daughter," Croslin said to the 911 operator, referring to Cummings’s daughter. "She was in her pajamas. We were sleeping."

Then Ronald told them:

"I just got home from work. My five-year-old daughter is gone. I need somebody to be here now," Cummings said. "If I find whoever has my daughter before y'all do, I'm killing them. I don't care. I'll spend the rest of my life in prison. ... I don't care."

Misty claimed the little girl disappeared out of the very room where she and the younger brother slept and was carted out the back door, which was found propped open with a cement block when the police arrived.  She said that she found the child missing when she got up to go to the bathroom and just then, Ronald arrived home. 

Although they seemed to check out the house, they didn’t appear to do much of a yard or neighborhood search, but called 911. While Misty tried to describe the child’s clothing, Ronald ranted about how his “dumb bitch girlfriend” had told him that his daughter was missing. Ronald repeatedly said someone had taken his child and that “when I find him, I will kill him.”

  

In the days, weeks, and month to follow, no trace of Haleigh is uncovered. Ronald and Misty spend little time searching for her and more time on watching TV, getting tattoos (that hideous one of Haleigh that looks like Chucky on his leg and the name of Ronnie on Misty’s back, even though they supposedly weren’t romantically involved any more), marrying each other, divorcing each other, and, finally, spending their valuable time dealing drugs and getting arrested. Now, both of them are likely heading to prison where certainly they won’t be able to find Haleigh. 

Through all of these shenanigans, Misty came out looking much worse than Ronald. She failed the polygraph and voice stress tests, couldn’t keep her story straight, and didn’t pull off too good of an act of despair. Ronald, on the other hand, gained a fairly strong fan club, people who believed he was at work when Haleigh went missing and cried convincingly on the 911 call and on camera.

But, finally, doubt is beginning to surface about Ronald’s character. He swore up and down to Geraldo that he had absolutely no involvement with drugs, and whaddya know, turns out he was a liar.

Okay. So now we know Ronnie is not a saint. And he lies. And he is a drug dealer. What else might Ronald be lying about? Let’s rewind back to the night Haleigh vanished. Here are some questions I have. What do you all think?

•  Does Ronald do enough of a search for Haleigh when he arrives home?
•  Do we have proof that Haleigh couldn’t have died before Ronald went to work?
•  Could Ronald have disposed of Haleigh’s body on the way to work, at the work location, or on the way home?
•  Could Ronald have instructed Misty to dump Haleigh’s body somewhere while he was at work so he would have an alibi?
•  Was Ronald faking sobs on the 911 call and during his television interviews?
•  Why does Ronald immediately say he is going to kill the guy who stole his child rather than hoping police find her and save her life?
•  Could the guy Ronald be talking about actually be himself? Sometimes liars pick a truthful situation and change either the person involved or the time of the event in order to tell the story somewhat truthfully but take themselves out of the perpetrator’s role.
•  Why is Ronald willing to get himself the death penalty for killing the guy or guys who “took his child” but not willing to beat up Misty for lying to him about what happened to his daughter?
•  Why would Ronald continue to live with, sleep with, and marry a woman who won’t tell him what she knows about his child’s disappearance?
•  Why doesn’t Ronald seem to care about his other child, Junior?
•  Why would Ronald say Haleigh would be happy he was marrying Misty? Wouldn’t he want his daughter to be able to attend the wedding and celebrate with him this special day?
•  How could Ronald get married while his daughter was somewhere dead or being raped and tortured?
• Why would Ronald spend money on a tattoo of Haleigh rather than use the money to find her?
•  Why, if Ronald thinks some guys came and took Haleigh, doesn’t he try to find those guys?

I believe Ronald is a manipulative, calculating, pathologically lying criminal who exhibits all the traits of psychopathy.

Usually, in cases where children go missing in the night, the male is responsible for the death of the child and the girlfriend/wife lies for him and sometimes takes the rap. I think that’s what happened in this case.

What do you think? Does Ronald know what happened to Haleigh, and is he the perpetrator of a crime against this child?

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The Extreme Measures Taken to Hide Fingerprints

by Andrea Campbell

John Herbert Dillinger got an extraordinary share of newspaper headlines as a notorious bank robber in the 1930s. His violent gang terrorized the Midwest between fall 1933 and summer 1934. They robbed banks, killed 10 men, wounded seven others, and staged three jail breaks, during which Dillinger killed one sheriff and wounded two guards. It is believed that he tried to obliterate his fingertips, but FBI agents say they were still able to match what was left of his prints.

From the moment fingerprints became the most reliable way to identify criminals and match evidence to crime, criminals have been trying to get rid of them.

IT STARTS IN THE WOMB

Friction ridge patterns that create fingerprints start in about the fourth month of pregnancy. Their purpose is to help us grip objects we pick up. They remain the same throughout our lifetimes, although they  grow larger until we become adults. Then they stay distinctively ours until we decompose.
 

Jim Patten, a staff writer for The (Lawrence, Mass.) Eagle-Tribune, tells the story of Edgardo Tirado, who, in a February 7, 2008, drug arrest, surprised police when he took off his gloves in the booking room. Lawrence police Detective Daron Fraser says, “I thought right away this guy is hiding from something in his past and is not who he says he is.” When the gloves came off, Tirado showed the booking agent thick stitches in rows on the tips of his fingers and thumbs (photo right). His story wasn’t credible; he told officers the wounds came from defending himself in a knife fight and claimed the other man had cut his fingertips and thumbs. As to where the fight took place, he wouldn’t say. While the police had their doubts, next day information came in from an officer who had dealt with the man earlier.

 
According to reporter Mimi Hall, writing for USA TODAY, “It was after dark when Border Patrol agents in Douglas, Arizona, nabbed Mateo Cruz-Cruz allegedly jumping the fence from Mexico. At first, they noticed nothing unusual about his fingers. But when they got him to the station to take his prints, special operations supervisor Ulysses Duronslet says, the agents made a gruesome discovery: "The tips of the 25-year-old man’s fingers were blackened and burned.” Apparently, Cruz-Cruz had a prior conviction for sexual assault of a minor in Iowa and was deported in March of 2004.
 
Officials claim finding more and more criminals who alter their fingerprints by burning the tips, using acid or other corrosives. A 2007 federal court recently sentenced Dr. Jose L. Covarrubias, of Nogales, Mexico, to 18 months in prison for replacing the fingerprints of a fugitive named Marc T. George with skin from the bottom of his feet. Although a U.S. citizen, Dr. Covarrubias holds a Mexican medical license. The 49-year-old doctor faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison. George, a Jamaican national who was involved in a drug ring, was caught and arrested sneaking across the U.S.-Mexico border May 2006, bandaged and limping badly from the painful procedure. He was facing money-laundering charges.

Every time our government ratchets up efforts to catch and identify people, Manuel Padilla, chief border patrol agent in New Orleans, says: “Whenever we do something, there’s always a counteraction to try to beat it.” Since 9/11 and our government’s tightened security measures, more people are taking similar steps to erase fingerprints, just as John Dillinger did when he tried to burn off his prints with corrosive acid in the '30s. 

 WE COUNTER
 
 When officers suspect something suspicious while printing, they inquire further. Today, in more serious crimes, the printing procedure involves taking full palm prints. Eagle-Tribune writer Patten says that in 2006, police used facial recognition software technology at the Middleton jail to identify a prisoner who had bitten off his fingertips to avoid being deported. (Photo above left. Source: Andover Police Department and an IAI Presentation; Courtesy, Mr. K. J. Burke).
 

The software breaks up facial images and assigns them numeric values, similar to the AFIS system for fingerprints. Of course, in the case of Middleton jail, officials also took a digital picture of the prisoner's hands and fed the image into the computer.

IT'S EVERYWHERE
 

In Calais, France, migrants hoping to get into Great Britain are also mutilating their hands, often trying to remove layers of skin to prevent analysis. Prefect Gerard Gavory claimed that at least 57 asylum seekers questioned in the port town over the past few weeks “had their finger prints removed.” Often polyurethane glue or cuts with razors are used. The most common method however, was burning all 10 on a stove burner. In response, a joint database within the European Union, called Eurodoc, stores asylum-seekers' prints. Gavory added: “We're not sending them to their deaths, but towards peaceful zones. In organizing a return, we will be sending a strong signal to the Afghans. At the moment they have a sense of complete impunity in Calais.”

HOW TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM?

Criminals often don’t realize that altering their fingertips in extreme ways also makes them more distinctive and, ironically, thus recognizable. History’s most famous case is Robert J. Phillips, aka Roscoe Pitts, who in 1941 had his fingertips sutured to his chest for weeks in an effort to smooth out his prints. A long time-criminal doing bank robberies and burglaries, Phillips made his New Jersey physician perform this painful operation. Phillips, however, was identified on the basis of the unaltered peripheral skin areas surrounding his fingertips and the pattern on the second joint of his fingers.

Another more recent example, this time rather successful, is Randolph Clifton Kling. Kling managed to obtain 83 driving licenses after altering both his appearance and thumb print. He got by for more than a decade, until finally arrested in 2000.

So what’s next? Likely biometrics — using patterns from the retina and iris. Facial recognition use is becoming more widespread; and, of course, vocal or voice recognition is always an option when circumstances merit. All these systems have their problems though, and so far, DNA is the most reliable. That is, until someone figures out how to manipulate our genes.

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