The Origins of Anthropometric Identification

Background and Context

Alphonse Bertillon, son of a pioneer in demography and anthropology, developed the first objective criminal identification system in the 1880s. Influenced by his father's anthropometric work, which sought to correlate physical traits like skull shape with intelligence and race, Bertillon brought these scientific methodologies into the French police force.

The Limitations of Early Mugshots

Working at the Parisian Prefecture of Police, Bertillon recognized that existing photographic records were unreliable. These collections lacked standardization, suffered from varying artistic conventions, and failed to account for physical changes over time. Because Victorian-era photography was often criticized for poor accuracy, photographs alone proved insufficient for foolproof criminal identification.