1. A method comprising: (a) determining, for each enrolled fingerprint of a plurality of enrolled fingerprints stored in a fingerprint database, locations for one or more window regions within that enrolled fingerprint; (b) determining, for each window region of each enrolled fingerprint, a minutiae score that is a function of one or more characteristics exhibited by minutiae contained within that window region and that reflects demographic characteristics of the minutiae within that window region; (c) determining, for an inquiry fingerprint, locations for one or more window regions within the inquiry fingerprint; (d) determining, for each window region of the inquiry fingerprint, the minutiae score based on the characteristics exhibited by the minutiae contained within that window region, wherein the minutiae score reflects demographic characteristics of the minutiae within that window region; (e) comparing at least one component of at least one of the one or more minutiae scores determined for the one or more window regions of the inquiry fingerprint against at least one corresponding component of the minutiae scores determined for a set of the one or more window regions of the enrolled fingerprints; (f) determining that a set of the enrolled fingerprints with window regions in the set of window regions have at least one window region that is associated with a minutiae score that has at least one component that is within a predetermined range of at least one corresponding component of the minutiae score of at least one of the window regions of the inquiry fingerprint; and (g) performing unconstrained matching between the inquiry fingerprint and the enrolled fingerprints in the set of enrolled fingerprints, wherein the window regions for the enrolled fingerprints and the inquiry fingerprint are all substantially the same size and shape.