How does the study of footprints help in CSI?

How does the study of footprints help 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 important thing about a footprint is the individuality that it contained. We have a general pattern associated with footwear that relates to its make, its size, its configuration and all of that. But that may not tell us exactly from what shoe the impression was made. The knowledge of the shoe, the exact shoe, comes from wear and tear markings that arise as a result of using that shoe and perhaps are present in an impression that is left at a crime scene and it's the search for those individual characteristics that are carried out in the crime lab.