Who invented mug shots

Furthermore, their photographs showed that the two men bore a close physical resemblance to one another, although it was not clear that they were even related. In the ensuing confusion surrounding the true identities of the two men, their fingerprints conclusively identified them and demonstrated clearly that the adoption of a fingerprint identification system was more reliable than the older Bertillon system.

Every biometric is a matter of getting enough bits of distinction to make non-uniqueness extremely improbable. Well, we will have to disagree. Here is more:. Subscribe to our newsletter Get the latest news, reviews, and commentary delivered directly to your inbox. Sign Up. Skip to content. Become a Member. The Latest Shop Hyperallergic for Art-inspired Gifts and More From thought-provoking books to various dazzling accessories, visit the Hyperallergic Store for artful presents this holiday season.

JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. By: Livia Gershon. May 7, April 28, Share Tweet Email Print. Weekly Newsletter. Have a correction or comment about this article? Please contact us. Join Our Newsletter. Here, people were invited to look through galleries of mug shots in order to familiarise themselves with local criminals, and possibly help identify offenders.

Rather than a practical aid to police, however, some scholars have criticised rogues galleries as merely a source of entertainment for Victorian voyeurs. Furthermore, they claim that mug shots at this time served to publicly humiliate and punish the offender more than as a practical means of recording information.

The name of Alphonse Bertillon may have dwindled beside that of Holmes, but his fingerprints are all over the early years of the forensic sciences at the end of the 19th century, and his influence persists to this day. The Frenchman developed a number of advanced techniques, most notably in standardising criminal photography — he has been dubbed the "father of the mug shot" — and his work will feature in an exhibition, "Forensics: the Anatomy of Crime", opening this week at the Wellcome Collection.

The criminologist's early life gave little clue that he would rise to the top of the field. As a young man, he left the army and eventually found a lowly junior clerical job at the Prefecture of Police in Paris in But data was in the blood: his father was chief of the Bureau of Statistics and Alphonse's brother would go on to help found the International Statistics Institute.

When Bertillon took up his post, the criminal records at the prefecture were in chaos. Re-offending rates were rising yet there was no concerted approach to improve the identification of recidivist criminals. So the resourceful Bertillon set to work on a formal cataloguing process. He became interested in anthropometry, the study of human variation, and devised a system of measuring criminals' distinguishing features, developing instruments to measure the length and breadth of the head, arm and finger lengths, foot size — even the protrusion of the eyeball.