How are footprints collected and analyzed in CSI?

How are footprints collected and analyzed in CSI?

Richard Saferstein (Former Chief Forensic Scientist) gives expert video advice on: What are 'impressions' that are studied in CSI?; How does the study of tool marks help in CSI?; How are tool marks collected and analyzed in CSI? and more...

The first thing one has to do is preserve the impression, and that's done through photography. Detailed photographs are taken at the crime scene of the impression. Second is to preserve the footprint through casting, and that is done either with plaster apparatus or dental stone. Once the photographs and the plaster impressions are brought back to the lab, the analyst will look for the general configuration or at the general configuration of the impression, it's size, it's shape, it's dimensions and all of that. What's most important is to look for individuality in the impression. Things that arise through wear and tear of the shoe. It's those individual characteristics that are compared to the shoe in question in order to make the ultimate comparison or identification of that suspect's shoe.