Biological vs legal age of living individuals

Abstract

The demand of forensic age determination in living individuals deals mostly with juvenile or subadults because in most European countries, the legally relevant age limit ranges between the 14th and 21st year of life. Among the variety of scientific procedures available in age assessment, there is wide agreement that methods based on sexual, skeletal, and dental maturity are suitable. Unfortunately, there are obviously problems with using age in a system measuring maturity and therefore, biological age (sexual, dental, or skeletal) does not always correspond to chronological age (legal). None of the modern techniques is both easy to use and practical, as most of them result in a slight over-or underestimation, depending on the applied method, the range of human variation between sex and population, and discrepancies between biological and legal age. The margin of error can be substantial in living individuals, sometimes by as much 2-3 yr either side, or at best, 12 mo, even by combined methods. The physician should use all the available evidence, including multiple maturity indicators, and must approach each case with caution, because the poor correlation between maturity and chronological age represents a fundamental limitation to age-determination practices in forensic settings. © 2006 Humana Press Inc.