Photography : a means of surveillance ? Judicial photography, 1850 to 1900

Abstract

The history of police photography is commonly believed to begin in the 1850s when the first portraits of prisoners were taken. A close relationship between medical, anthropological and judicial photography is assumed. The investigation of the photographic practices in the prison and at the police reveals that the general discourse on photography was far more important for the application of photography in penal institutions. When the criminal police began to use photographs systematically in the 1870s it was more to display effectiveness than a real means of detection. After some years of collecting, the collections became cumbersome and unmanageable. Alphonse Bertillon's innovations solved this problem and later he introduced a specialised « judicial style » of photography into the police. Still, photographs were more important in representing scientific policing than in detecting « criminals ».