Enrique Ramos slipped a long piece of packing tape into a bowl of purple dye, swished it around and then held it up to a light, looking for fingerprints.
"They use this tape for packaging drugs or for tying you up before they put a bullet in your head," he told a group of forensic science students clustered around him. "You get great fingerprints off it."
As Mexico struggles to stem a wave of drug-related crime, forensic science classes such as Ramos' are multiplying, trying to meet the booming demand for fingerprint collectors, crime scene photographers and ballistics experts to keep up with the body count.
"Forensic science is seeing a boom in Mexico," said Rafael Ruíz Mena, secretary-general for professional training at Mexico's National Institute of Criminal Science. "More and more young people are seeing this as a career opportunity."
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-01-12-mexico-crime_N.htm
