Is it possible to know up front that someone may have the potential to commit fraud, steal or lie or to identify likely suspects in an investigation? A careful handwriting analysis can detect the potential for deception in handwriting.
All of us practice deceptive behaviour at one time or another. Your partner asks your opinion about an outfit. Do you tell the truth and risk their wrath? Or do you lie to keep the peace? Someone asks you to do them a favour. You are annoyed, but say, ‘sure, no problem.’ You help yourself to the telephone at work, run errands during work hours, or you phone in to work and let them know you are on death’s door when in actual fact, you didn’t feel like going to work, and the list goes on. Social dishonesty shows up in the handwriting. But so does intentional dishonesty and the potential for criminal behaviour and it is the latter which is of most concern to society.
Robert Saudek, a Czech psychologist and handwriting analyst, spent a significant amount of time researching the subject of dishonesty. He analysed hundreds of handwriting samples of criminals and based on the high number of occurrences, concluded that there are recurring graphological features in the writing of this group of people.
There are at least 34 features which could suggest dishonesty. It has to be stressed that the trained handwriting analyst will need to identify at least 5 such features consistently throughout the specimen before any conclusion can be drawn.
On its own, this feature means nothing. But clustered with at least 5 other features indicating deception, the looped oval suggests deceitfulness and/or hypocrisy.
Can you read this word? Yo? Go? This is an ambiguous letter ‘G’. There is a covering stroke on the ‘o’. There is a long lead in stroke and a sharp pointed lower loop (left tending). There is discontinuity between the first and the second letter. To repeat, by themselves, these features mean little, but in a cluster, they have significance.
In an investigation, handwriting together with other measures such as Statement Analysis, can be used to eliminate innocent subjects and to identify likely suspects.