Criminal Being Held Down For Mug Shot, New York, 1884

A criminal being held down for his mug shot in 1884 in New York. This photograph is from a chapter entitled Why Thieves Are Photographed in a book by Inspector Thomas Byrnes (on far left) called Professional Criminals of America (1886). Photographing criminals caught on in the 1880s, after Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914), a French police officer, invented the standard mug shot in: a pair of photographs (one frontal, one in profile) taken in similar lighting conditions and attached to ID cards recording other descriptive physical data

Restrictions Only for Ireland and United Kingdom

Anthropometry Biometrics Booking Byrnes Cops Criminals Criminology Enforcement Forensic Forensics Identity Inspector Method Mugshot Photographing Restraining

Features In These Collections

> Contributors > PHR