“Every measurement slowly reveals the workings of the criminal. Careful observation and patience will reveal the truth.” — Alphonse Bertillon, French criminologist.
After the invention of photography, police began to keep “rogues’ galleries,” disorganised photographic collections of suspects and convicts. What was needed was a way to retrieve images and information quickly. In 1879, Alphonse Bertillon invented a method that combined detailed measurement and classification of unique features with frontal and profile photographs of suspects, and which recorded the information on standardised cards in orderly files. Bertillon’s system was based on five primary measurements: (1) head length; (2) head breadth; (3) length of the middle finger; (4) length of the left foot; (5) length of the “cubit” (the forearm from the elbow to the extremity of the middle finger). Each principal heading was further subdivided into three classes of “small,” “medium” and “large.” The length of the little finger and the eye colour were also recorded. Bertillon’s system was later overtaken by fingerprinting, but the Bertillon “mug shot” endures.
Alphonse Bertillon used photography and measurement to create a record of unique identifiers that could be used to track suspects, inmates, and repeat offenders. His system depended on a complicated filing method that cross-referenced a standardised set of identifying characteristics, making the information retrievable. From a mass of details, recorded on hundreds of thousands of cards, it was possible to sift and sort down the cards until a small stack of cards produced the combined facts of the measurements of the individual sought. The cards were arranged to make efficient use of space. The identification process was entirely independent of names and the final identification was confirmed by the photographs included on the individual’s card. Although it was somewhat difficult to use, modernisers in many countries took it as a model system for tracking and controlling individual citizens and immigrants.
The Bertillon system came unstuck around 1903 when two prisoners in the United States of America, with the same name and same body measurements, were mistaken for one another. Fingerprinting became the preferred method to identify individuals by police related organisations and they soon moved away from the Bertillon system as this new discovery proved to be truly reliable.
__________________
This information has been supplied by the Queensland Police Museum from the best resources available at the time of writing. The Police Museum is open 9am to 4pm Monday to Thursday and 10am to 3pm on the last Sunday of the month (Feb-Nov) and is located on the Ground Floor of Police Headquarters at 200 Roma Street, Brisbane. Contact: E: museum@police.qld.gov.au
“FROM THE VAULT: The Bertillon Identification System” by the Queensland Police Service is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY-SA 4.0) ShareAlike 4.0 International. Permissions may be available beyond the scope of this licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/