It required more that three decades for fingerprint technology, invented in the British colony of India, to reach the British colony of Malta. Fingerprint classification did not arrive in Malta until 1932 because Malta presented a different context; the social conditions conducive for the use of this knowledge did not exist. The extension of a criminal code mindful of the rights of British subjects, a police force organized to keep order rather than prevent crimes, the Europeanness of the Maltese people, and the lack of a serious crime problem introduced considerable delay in the use of fingerprint-based criminal identification. Because the context in Malta surrounding the use of fingerprints was more similar to England than India, the British political class was willing to extend methods otherwise reserved for criminal suspects to immigrants. The effort to identify and monitor aliens in Malta created the institutional basis within the police organization from which fingerprint science would be practiced. Fingerprint technology became institutionalized following enactment of the Aliens Act in 1899 and formation of a detective and alien branch within the police organization. Notes and references