![\"Al](\"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/AlCaponemugshot.jpg\")
Some of the very earliest photographs from the late 1830s are of alleged and\/or convicted criminals, and law enforcement officials used photographs of criminals in Belgium as early as the 1840s to track down wrong-doers.\u00a0 In Paris, a clerk in the Prefecture of Police Office originated the \u201cmug shot\u201d as we usually imagine it — two shots side by side, with one shot being a frontal shot and the other being a profile.<\/p>\n
This so-called \u201cBertillon System\u201d was displayed at the Chicago World\u2019s Fair in 1893, and it quickly caught on with American urban police departments.\u00a0 It was an age of science, and some thought of the mug shot as a useful component in \u201cscientific law enforcement.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, there are surviving efforts by police departments to superimpose photographs of certain types of criminals on top of one another.\u00a0\u00a0 We could then, theoretically, have distilled images of, to note only two of many possibilities, the typical pickpocket or typical forger.<\/p>\n
In the present, mug shots are still with us, but we now live in an era in which the market rather than science is seen by many as our savior.\u00a0 It is possible to round up mug shots from public records and post them regardless of whether the pictured individuals have been prosecuted and\/or convicted.\u00a0 Over 80 profit-seeking mug-shot sites exist, including the likes of BustedMugshots and MugshotsOnline.\u00a0 JustMugshots, which only started in 2012, has an unbelievable 16.8 photographs available online.<\/p>\n
How do the mug-shot sites make money?\u00a0 Some of course sell advertising, and others offer to conduct searches for a price.\u00a0\u00a0 Then, too, some offer a \u201ccourtesy removal service,\u201d through which consumers can pay a fee and have their mug shots removed from a site.\u00a0 Some claim this is nothing short of extortion, raising the delightful possibility that those posting the mug shots rather than those pictured in them are the true criminals!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some of the very earliest photographs from the late 1830s are of alleged and\/or convicted criminals, and law enforcement officials used photographs of criminals in Belgium as early as the 1840s to track down wrong-doers.\u00a0 In Paris, a clerk in the Prefecture of Police Office originated the \u201cmug shot\u201d as we usually imagine it — 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