Age estimation of living persons: A coherent approach to inference and decision

Abstract Evidence interpretation is a fundamental aspect of forensic science: it is basically a problem of inference and decision. Forensic age estimation is no exception to this reality. Evidence related to the biological development of an individual is often relevant from a legal perspective, such as when examining the probability that a person is younger or older than a given age threshold, for instance, the age of majority. Provided that uncertainty in forensic evidence should be measured by means of probability, the Bayesian approach represents the ideal solution for both inference and decision. This contribution aims to illustrate how this perspective operates in age estimation from both theoretical and operational points of view.