Editor’s note, August 25, 2023:This story has been updated following the release of the first presidential mug shot.
In the spring of 1841, just after finishing his inauguration speech, William Henry Harrison became the first United States president to be photographed. The portrait was a daguerreotype, created with a newly invented process that produced a photograph in minutes rather than hours.
While Harrison’s image was lost to history, a photographer snapped the oldest surviving presidential photograph just two years later: a portrait of John Quincy Adams, taken over a decade after his time in office. Sitting in front of a fireplace and a stack of books, with a sharp gaze fixed just below the camera lens, the politician is portrayed with a stately solemnity.
Since then, many famous photos of presidents have become etched in the American psyche: Harry Truman holding the prematurely printed newspaper declaring his defeat in the 1948 election, Richard Nixon boarding his helicopter after resigning in 1974, George W. Bush learning of the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Barack Obama sitting in the Situation Room during the mission to kill Osama bin Laden in 2011.
During his term, Donald Trump also appeared in a numberofmemorableimages. Now, he is the subject of a new photographic first: the presidential mug shot.
SinceMarch, Trump has been indicted four times, becoming the first former president to face criminal charges. (The first—and so far only—sitting president to be arrested was Ulysses S. Grant, who waspulled overfor speeding in his horse-drawn carriage in 1872.)
Yesterday, Trump surrendered at Atlanta’s Fulton County jail on more than a dozen counts related to his alleged efforts to reverse Georgia’s election results. While other jurisdictions had allowed him to skip certain formalities, in Fulton County he was fingerprinted, measured,weighed—and photographed.
Like the presidential portrait, the mug shot’s history begins as early as the 1840s, when prisoners in Belgium were photographed so they could be identified if they committed crimes after their sentences ended. Over the following decades, police departments around the world began experimenting with ways to incorporate photography into their work. In the U.S., police created rogues’ galleries of mug shots, sometimes even publishing them and encouraging upstanding citizens to keep a watchful eye out for troublemakers.
The practice, however, didn’t become standardized until the 1880s, when Alphonse Bertillon, chief of criminal identification for the Paris police, streamlined the process.
Bertillon’s mug shot consisted of two photographs—one facing the camera, the other in profile—attached to a written description of physical features and certain measurements, such as the size of someone’s ear or foot. Together, these elements were called a portrait parlé, or “speaking image.”
“Bertillon designed the portrait parléin an effort to catch masters of disguise who committed crimes under different aliases,” wrote Shawn Michelle Smith in the journal Aperturein 2018. “He proposed that although a repeat offender might conceal his identity, one would be able to discover him if his physical measurements matched those of ‘another’ offender already recorded.”
In 1908, the New York City Police Department compiled a series of images showing how to properly take a mug shot and the accompanying measurements. According to Smith, some of these images even “simulate people who refuse to sit for their mug shots and are wrestled into submission before the camera by multiple men, suggesting that not all subjects would be amenable to these extensive measurements.”
Soon after, “Bertillon’s method of recording anthropometric data lost out to the more reliable process of fingerprinting,” wrote Slate’s Julia Felsenthal in 2010.
The mug shot, however, endured.
“Whenever you go through an airport or … a train station … and somebody asks to see your identification document, that all has roots in the late 1800s and the work of people like Bertillon and his contemporaries,” Jonathan Finn, a police photography expert, told NPR’s Hansi Lo Wang in 2016.
Today, the vast majority of mug shots portray people who aren’t famous—and sometimes even people who haven’t committed crimes. Mug shots can be published in newspapers before the subject is actually convicted. In recent years, public opinion has started turning against the practice, and some newsrooms have stopped using mug shots altogether.
“Mug shot slideshows whose primary purpose is to generate page views will no longer appear on our websites,” Mark Lorando, a managing editor at the Houston Chronicle, told the Marshall Project’s Keri Blakinger in 2020. “We’re better than that.”
Among celebrities, mug shots are staples of tabloid gossip. They are “a genre unto themselves, notable for providing that rare opportunity to see the rich and beautiful brought low,” writes the Washington Post’s Gillian Brockell.
In specific contexts, such as the civil rights movement, famous mug shots are seen as a mark of integrity. Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and many other famous activists had mug shots taken when they were arrested for protesting.
Exceptions also exist for celebrities who have crafted an image involving an outlaw spirit as a central tenet. Throughout his career, Johnny Cash spent several one-night stints behind bars, and he spun one of those experiences into the song “Starkville City Jail.” Today, a T-shirt with Cash’s mug shot and the text “American Rebel” is on sale in the singer’s official store for $25.
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Ellen Wexler is Smithsonian magazine’sassistant digital editor, humanities.
After the defeat of the Paris Commune in 1871, the Prefecture of Police of Paris hired a photographer, Eugène Appert, to take portraits of convicted prisoners. In 1888, Alphonse Bertillon invented the modern mug shot featuring full face and profile views, standardizing the lighting and angles.
Visit your state's department of corrections website.
Every state in the U.S. should have a website, and you can use the inmate locator to find information about the prisoner. Some states will also publish mugshots. Type “your state” and “department of corrections” into your favorite web browser.
Mugshots include both a front view and side view of the arrested person. This police tool came to have this nickname mugshot from the informal meaning of mug, "face."
Whether you're after a quick tasty lunch or a snack to tide you over until your next meal, we've got a delicious product for you. Every recipe is packed full of tasty ingredients, with all natural flavours, low calories, less than 2% fat and contains no MSG.
Mugshots was born when two college buddies with a dream moved to Hawaii. Two friends, who met while attending college, were side-by-side bartenders at a local eatery in Hattiesburg, MS.
Japan and China gave us our first pottery mugs somewhere in 10,000 BCE. There are even clay-made mugs. Just ask the Greeks — they made these clay mugs back in 4,000-5,000 BCE.
Early 16th century (originally Scots and northern English, denoting "earthenware, pot, jug"), of unknown origin, perhaps from North Germanic (compare Swedish mugg (“mug, jug”), Norwegian mugge (“pitcher, open can for warm drinks”), Danish mugge), or Low German mokke, mukke (“mug”), German Low German Muck (“drinking cup ...
Check the websites of the police departments and sheriff's offices where you were arrested. Some law enforcement agencies post mugshots online, but not all. If you know the county where you were arrested, you can Google "(county) mugshot (name)" to see if there are any results. Search the FindMugshots website.
The best way to locate information on a federal prisoner for free is to go to the Bureau of Federal Prisons.Then, go to the inmate locator tab.You can search by inmate number or name. A list of results will appear with the inmates' names, ID number, age, sex, race, and release date, or prison location.
Google's removal policies can be very strict and they will likely not remove your mugshot unless you violate specific guidelines. Keep in mind that this request for removal is only applicable to Google search results. If the mugshot is still available on the original website, it will remain online.
The picture that is taken of you when you are incarcerated for a crime is called a mugshot. This photo is taken to keep a record of the individual who has been arrested in the law enforcement's system. Mugshots are mainly used for identification purposes during criminal proceedings.
The mug shot as we know it today—a tightly framed photograph of a suspect's face and side profile—was invented by Parisian police officer Alphonse Bertillon in the late 1880s. Bertillon standardized the mug shot, hoping to catalog criminals more effectively.
Previously Mug Shots and Batchelors Pasta 'n' Sauce packet meals were counted as free foods but now dieters will have to count the popular snacks as part of their daily food intake.
It is important for the purpose of facial recognition that the person being photographed is looking directly at the camera with their full face and ears exposed and without any facial expression. Tilting or rotating of the head can cause inaccurate facial measurements that may result in recognition problems.
These Hot Shots can alleviate nausea, support healthy digestion, and ease discomfort after meals, making them a must-have for those seeking digestive wellness.
noun. , Slang. Also called headshot. an identifying photograph of a suspect or criminal, often one of a set showing a frontal view, a profile view, and a view of the back of the head.
Informally, a mug is a face: that's why a mug shot of a prisoner is a picture of his face right after he has been arrested. When it's a verb, mug means "rob someone while threatening violence." This meaning came from an earlier definition, "to strike someone in the face (or the mug)."
Something like that is a matter of agency policy and protocol. Normally, it isn't used to “hide” somebody's neck, but rather to cover street clothes they might be wearing at the time. You may also see some arrestees wearing what looks like a barber's “bib” (apron).
Mugshots are added to records and databases that are kept and may be used to identify people in the future if they commit further offences. Police allow victims to look at mug shots to try and identify the person who assaulted them or committed another crime they witnessed such as...
Frank Sinatra was arrested by the Bergen County, New Jersey sheriff in 1938 and charged with seduction and adultery - a criminal offense in those times. He was tagged with 'Arrest 42799' and this notorious mug shot. The charge was later changed to adultery, and eventually dismissed.
The faces were somewhat caricaturish, which may explain why the word mug is often used to describe an unattractive face, a funny facial expression, or even a foolish person. Since not many suspects manage to look their best in a mug shot, the colloquialism seems especially apt.
The first instance of a drinking apparatus seems to have been invented in the Neolithic Stone Age in 10,000 BC in China and Japan. These ancestors of the modern mug were made of bone or wood and did not have a handle which made it difficult for the drinker to grasp it.
Jeremy Meeks is an American model and former criminal who gained fame and modeling opportunities due to his striking mugshot. Here's a brief overview of his story: Mugshot: In 2014, Jeremy Meeks was arrested on weapons charges in Stockton, California.
Introduction: My name is Msgr. Refugio Daniel, I am a fine, precious, encouraging, calm, glamorous, vivacious, friendly person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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