{"id":5332,"date":"2023-07-20T15:48:04","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T13:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovatrics.com\/trustreport\/?p=5332"},"modified":"2023-08-09T11:19:33","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T09:19:33","slug":"the-history-of-criminal-identification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovatrics.com\/trustreport\/the-history-of-criminal-identification\/","title":{"rendered":"From measuring head length to advanced facial biometrics: The history of criminal identification"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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How did the police catch villains back in the old days, before the dawn of computers, fancy tech gadgets and automated biometric identification systems?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The way we identify criminals has come a long way throughout history, thanks to advancements in technology and forensic techniques. However, from early techniques of measuring the length of an ear or middle finger, to the present day where advanced biometric technologies can identify a suspect in seconds, the essence of police work has remained the same: focus, patience and persistence.  <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Bertillon system: Sit, stand, raise your arms\u2026 and smile <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Imagine you are a police officer in the late 19th century. There was a robbery in a wealthier district of the city, one of a dozen in the last couple of months. This time you were able to catch the main suspect. You handcuff him, put him in a horse-drawn wagon and off you gallop to the police station. But what now? You don’t know who this person is and there are no computers to help you identify them, no searchable databases. The uniqueness of fingerprints has not been discovered yet. What do you do? <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Mugshots, photos from crime scenes and dead bodies were also part of the Bertillon system.
Source: Wiki Commons\/Gilman Collection, Purchase, The Howard Gilman Foundation Gift, 2001<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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You take some precise measurements of the suspect: head length, head breadth, length of middle finger, length of the left foot, and length of the cubit (distance from elbow to tip of the middle finger). You complete the procedure by taking a photograph of them. After all that, you dig deep into the records of all criminals you have at the police station and manually try to find someone with the same measurements. Great work, you just used the Bertillon system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon invented the system in the late 19th century. He based it on the idea of people having different combinations of lengths and widths of their body parts, which should be measured and used to identify unknown perpetrators and known recidivists. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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What exactly did anthropometry measure?<\/h6>\n\n\n\n