Hangul signature identification has only been depended on personal experience without certain procedure of fixed standards. The characteristics of handwriting consistency, judgement of change range in a writer's signature, scarcity have not been routi...
Hangul signature identification has only been depended on personal experience without certain procedure of fixed standards. The characteristics of handwriting consistency, judgement of change range in a writer's signature, scarcity have not been routinely considered during the Hangul signature identification. This study intended to systematize the methods for the Hangul signature identification.
The major topic that is discussed in this study is the followings.
First is an overview on the defects of the identification methods depending on examiner's experience and its reform plan. It is possible to partially identify persons' handwriting and thumbprint. The characteristic of the one's handwriting can be classified as the identification on the document level characteristic, inter-character level characteristic and intra-character level characteristic. These factors should be considered and be mentioned in the report of the identification result. The change of one's handwriting and characteristic of the handwriting must be identified according to a definite standard. All of the terminology used for the identification must be systematized in certain standard to prevent misunderstanding. Additionally, the terminology must be selected in laymen's term for the common people to understand. Footnote may be added as well.
Second, the handwriting of a person in different condition must be analyzed too. According to a precedent, a test is conducted to see the difference of one's handwriting when he or she is in normal condition or drunken condition. This test was conducted by 4 professional document examiners and 4 trainees who have practiced in the advanced course of document examination in Chung-nam National University for more than a year. Out of 30 samples, 14 samples (46.7%) to 24 samples (80%) have shown the same identification in signature when he or she writes in normal condition and drunken condition. The rest of the samples have not shown any same identification in their signatures. When the signature identification is conducted based on the experience of examiners', the results showed some personal disagreement. When the signatures were written in drunken condition, they showed the differences in various details such as connection of strokes, arrangement of characters, arrangement of consonants and vowels, etc. This means that the results were not sufficient enough to be used as the examination data of the signature samples. In order to reduce the difference in the test result of the samples, certain standard of characteristics must be systematized such as characteristics of handwriting, criteria on scarcity according to appearance frequency, criteria of change range etc.
Third, the test result conducted by the scale for handwriting identification(SHWI) indicated that 21 (70 %) samples out of 30 showed difference in size of the characters. 9 (30%) samples out of 30 showed difference in space between characters about 4.8 mm. The size of character, space between characters, omission of strokes, connection of strokes derived from alcohol drinking are not necessarily proportional to blood alcohol concentration ; BAC. Thus, persons' handwriting including signatures when he or she is drunken is not appropriate to be used as signature samples for examination, but it is appropriate to be used as reference considering the change differences depending on individuals.
Fourth, the following Korean alphabets ㄱ, ㄴ, ㅅ, ㅇ, ㅈ, ㅓ, and l are classified according to their characteristics and appearance frequency. The types of character such as horizontal type, vertical type and mixed type are considered in classification procedure. First consonant, final consonant are observed for the difference of individual handwriting depending on its position in a character. The criteria on scarcity according to appearance frequency is possible to considering the various characteristics of consonants and vowels.
‘김’(Kim), ‘이’(Yi), ‘정’(Jung) characteristic according to beginning stroke, ending stroke and bending part etc. are numbered. The characteristics are classified by using method of SHWI based on the locations of each part.
The handwriting characteristic of Hangul character(syllable) is based on the detailed characteristics of consonant and vowel. It can be verified by observing the characteristics derived from combination of the first consonant and vowel, final consonant and vowel, the first and final consonant. The 67 primary characteristics and 345 sub-characteristics or detailed characteristics are observed in ‘김’. The 11 primary characteristics and 70 sub-characteristics or detailed characteristics are observed in ‘이’. Lastly, 51 primary characteristics and 267 sub-characteristics or detailed characteristics are observed in ‘정’. By observing the appearance frequency of above mentioned characteristics enables by the examiners to distinguish the scarcity.
When characteristic and appearance frequency of 470 frequently found in Hangul characters were carefully examined and the results were accumulated, the accuracy for the handwriting identification would remarkably increase. In order to systematized these methods for the Hangul handwriting identification, all the data must be accumulated such as handwriting difference due to persons' condition whether he or she is under the alcohol drunken condition or other respective condition, change range, location change of the hangul consonant and vowel, classification according to characteristics, criteria on scarcity according to appearance frequency. These data must be considered and accumulated by computer data base. I believe that based on above mentioned system, Hangul identification should be conducted according to certain standard with accuracy. By the cooperation of forensic science of other field, systematized Hangul identification could be contribute to the finding of truth more effectively.