The History of the Mug Shot: How Bertillon Turned Faces Into Evidence

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

You know, it's funny how certain words just totally embed themselves in our language, like completely detached from their original context. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, take the word mug. I mean, if you look back to the 18th century, mug was just English street slang for face.

SPEAKER_2 (0:15)

Just a regular face, yeah.

SPEAKER_1 (0:17)

Right, just an everyday face. But today, if you put the word shot right after it, you instantly picture one very specific, highly regulated, incredibly famous type of photograph.

SPEAKER_2 (0:27)

Yeah, you immediately see the plain background, the harsh clinical lighting, and that side profile juxtaposed right next to the straight on stair. I mean, it's a visual format that completely crosses all language and cultural barriers.

SPEAKER_1 (0:41)

It really does.

SPEAKER_2 (0:42)

You see that setup no matter where you are in the world, and you instantly know what you're looking at.

SPEAKER_1 (0:48)

And I want you listening right now to just picture that format in your head.

You can probably see it perfectly, right? But here is the thing. Most of us have no idea how that very specific format actually came to be.

SPEAKER_2 (1:01)

Right. We'll just take it for granted.

SPEAKER_1 (1:02)

Exactly. We just accept it as this universal law of nature, like the sky is blue and mug shots look like mug shots. But it wasn't always like this.

So today, we are going on a deep dive into the surprisingly fascinating and, honestly, psychologically loaded history of this photograph.

SPEAKER_2 (1:22)

It's a heavy topic for sure.

SPEAKER_1 (1:23)

It is. Our mission today is to figure out how we got from the wild west days of early police photography to a system so incredibly standardized.

SPEAKER_2 (1:34)

And powerful.

SPEAKER_1 (1:34)

Yes. So deeply powerful. That modern courtrooms basically consider the photo itself to be a threat to a fair trial.

SPEAKER_2 (1:41)

Which is just a brilliant irony really. We are looking at the intersection of early camera technology, law enforcement desperation, and the quirks of human psychology.

SPEAKER_1 (1:51)

Yeah.

SPEAKER_2 (1:51)

Changing the exact way a camera was pointed at a person fundamentally altered the criminal justice system forever.

SPEAKER_1 (1:58)

It's crazy to think about.

SPEAKER_2 (1:59)

It is. Because it solved a massive problem for detectives, but then accidentally created a massive problem for judges and juries later on.

SPEAKER_1 (2:08)

So let's wind the clock back to the 1840s and look at that initial problem.

Photography is brand new. The daguerreotype process is just being introduced to the world.

SPEAKER_2 (2:19)

Right. The very beginning.

SPEAKER_1 (2:21)

And almost immediately, law enforcement realizes they need this technology. There's this instantaneous collision between the invention of the camera and the daily needs of the police. Yeah.

SPEAKER_2 (2:31)

We aren't talking about a technology that took decades to trickle down into government use. The speed of adoption is actually staggering for the 19th century.

SPEAKER_1 (2:40)

Because it was the 1840s, right?

SPEAKER_2 (2:42)

Exactly. The earliest records of police photographing prisoners appear in Belgium around 1843 and 1844

SPEAKER_1 (2:50)

Wow.

SPEAKER_2 (2:50)

Think about that timeline. The very concept of photography had barely been introduced to the general public, and police departments were already dragging suspects in front of the lens.

SPEAKER_1 (3:00)

Because before the camera, if you're a detective, how do you even prove someone is a repeat offender?

SPEAKER_2 (3:05)

You basically had to rely on another detective's memory.

SPEAKER_1 (3:08)

Right. Or like a written description in a ledger, average height, brown hair, medium nose.

SPEAKER_2 (3:13)

Which describes half the city.

SPEAKER_1 (3:15)

Exactly. That's half the population of any city. So the camera must have felt like absolute magic to them. And it spread like wildfire. I mean, by 1846, police in Sydney, Australia were doing it.

SPEAKER_2 (3:25)

Yeah. It went global fast.

SPEAKER_1 (3:27)

It did. By 1848, the trend had hit the UK in places like Liverpool and Birmingham.

SPEAKER_2 (3:32)

Because there was just this overwhelming hunger for visual records. I mean, law enforcement has always struggled with the fundamental problem of identity. Just knowing exactly who they are dealing with.

SPEAKER_1 (3:44)

Right.

SPEAKER_2 (3:44)

A physical photograph offered the first truly objective record of a suspect's existence.

SPEAKER_1 (3:49)

So I want you to imagine walking into a police station in Philadelphia in 1853 Because the Philadelphia Police Department didn't just take photos.

They had set up a literal gallery.

SPEAKER_2 (4:00)

A whole room of them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_1 (4:02)

They had a physical room where daguerreotypes, those early silvered copper plate photographs of known criminals were just displayed right on the walls.

SPEAKER_2 (4:11)

Like an art gallery, but for criminals.