Le metodologie di stima dell’età in ambito forense: il contributo dell’AgEstimation Project

Age estimation in forensic medicine is connected with both important legal and social issues. Age is a primary crucial factor for preliminary screening procedures in case of identification of a body: it is a main element in the biological profile reconstruction, which can be compared to missing persons. In our societies rights and responsibilities are explicitly related by chronological age. It is essential to have a specific age for voting, marriage, work, driving, and adulthood. However estimation of age is also becoming crucial, in living person, because age has a central role in case of imputability and criminal responsibility, child pornography, adoption and immigration. In recent years there was a sharp increase in the requests for forensic age estimation of a living person as a consequence of immigration and the increased number of individuals without valid documents or proof of date of birth. The assessment of age can be required by courts and authority in criminal justice cases or for asylum seekers. European Legislation assures special treatment and protection to unaccompanied minors. Unaccompanied minors are young people or children, who reach European countries without adult reference figures. The correct determination of age is a central element for ensuring the protection: only if children and juveniles are identified, they will be protected. In this specific field of application age can determinate the future of a migrant. If recognised as a minor, the migrant has the right to stay. The crucial dividing line is at 18 years of age in Italy, or similar range in European countries. Moreover age is relevant in different legal procedures because many countries defined age limits e.g Minimal Age of Criminal Responsibility. With this age limits, even if a young person has committed a criminal act, that person cannot be considered responsible, or even if so held responsible, he/she will be judged by a court for minors. A particular challenge in forensic practice regards the need of reliable age assessment standards. Many present standards are based on the studies of Europeans or north Americans subjects, and large part of this standard data was collected many years ago. For this reason forensic anthropologists are studying new data collection from modern populations. It is also possible to apply an “old” method to individuals from different countries, to test the accuracy and the reliability of the technique. Roberto Cameriere presented new methods for age estimation in living person, few years ago. The aim of this research is to test Cameriere’s methods and his formulas used to estimate age, in samples from different populations. In childhood the method analyses the ratio between the development of carpal bones and the carpal area, while another method use a cut-off value to assesses adult age in young subjects. In this technique the development of the third lower molar in analysed: if the third molar index is lower than 0.08 the subject will be considered as an adult. The last technique applied is a method for age estimation in adulthood. It is based on the progressive reduction, of the dimensions of pulp chamber in teeth, due to the deposition of secondary dentine. In a young subject the area of the pulp chamber is quite wide, while in an older subject its dimensions will decrease. Radiographs were used to observe secondary dentine deposition and the development of carpal bones, and also to measure the third molar index.