Something New about Mug Shots that You Never Knew

Do you remember any crime or police shows you used to watch, where the detectives finally catch the bad guy in the end and he gets sent to jail right after having his picture taken by the police force? Such a photograph taken by the police force is known as  a mug shot.

The term 'mug shot' originated from the term 'mug', which was used in the 18th century as the English slang word for 'face'. Mug shots were invented by a man named Allan Pinkerton, a U.S detective from the 19t century. The Pinkerton National Detective Agency first made use of these Atlanta mugshots during the Wild West days, when they put mug shots of the criminals they were looking for onto their Wanted posters in order to spread the search for the bad guy to a wider set of eyes.

What a mug shot is basically composed of is two pictures of the criminal, one with him/her directly facing the camera and another picture of the criminal looking to the side for a shot at his/her profile. This idea of mug shots might have originated from the 1865 portraits of prisoners taken by Alexander Gardner of the suspected conspirators during the Lincoln assassination trial, though these pictures were slightly different, one being a full body shot front on and the other still a full body shot but with the head turned slightly to the side.

Sometimes, criminals were made to hold up placards with information about themselves in the mug shots as well, information such as their names, booking IDs, date and place of birth, height, weight and others. Digital photographs have come in very useful as well with the boom of technology, and nowadays, digital photos can easily be uploaded and stored in a police database record, along with information about the criminal and all the important data regarding his/her arrest.

Another thing that technology has contributed to mug shots is the easy accessibility to search online for the mug shots of various criminals within your city or district. If you wish to search for Atlanta Mug Shots for example, all you have to do is type those three words into any search engine online any out will come various links that will lead you to the websites dedicated to organizing the various mug shots of the criminals, thieves, sex offenders and murders in the Atlanta area. One other thing you can do in websites of this sort is type in the name and city of a person you wish to look up, then click and wait to see if the person has any criminal records or police background.