Forensic Age Estimation in Unaccompanied Minors and Young Living Adults

Abstract

1.1 FAE a need in nowadays everyday forensic practice Forensic Age Estimation (FAE) defines an expertise in forensic medicine which aims to define in the most accurate way the chronological age of person of an unknown age involved in judicial or legal proceedings. The term “estimation” defines more precisely than other as “diagnosis” the real limits inherent to this expertise. The state of the art in FAE is such that nowadays there is no medical test or a group of tests that absolutely and accurately let us know the exact chronological age of a human being (Ritz Timme et al., 2000). Nevertheless, in everyday practice, Justice Courts and other Public Institutions require this type of experts reports to forensic physicians and Legal Medicine Institutes. In this expertise it s needed a collaborative knowledge of very diverse disciplines like Forensic and Physical Anthropology, Odontology and even some general medical specialities like Radiology of Pediatrics all of them ideally centered in Legal Medicine Institutes. FAE is not at all a recent field of expertise in Forensic Sciences and Judiciary History. In old Roman Empire, the eruption of second molar indicated the moment in which a young male was considered for military service (Schmeling, 2008). During XIX century age estimation was mainly performed by dentists. In 1837, Edwing Saunders published “The Teeth a Test of Age” and British Parlament decided to teeth eruption as an accurate method to determine the age of kids. At those ages, minimum criminal age was 7 years old in Britain and also in 1883 minimum required age for mining workers was 9 years. Nevertheless, at that time, also some voices expressed their criticism with this practice for an age estimation. In 1846, Dr. Pedro Mata in his text book of Legal Medicine expressed his concern on assuring without any kind of a doubt an age estimation based solely on teeth eruption (Mata, 1846). In 1895, Rontgen discovered X rays. His discover opens a new dimension for age estimation in living subjects. The applications of his discovery in Legal Medicine were nearly