Not like today's mugshots - vintage mugshots from the 1920s.

August 19, 2013 10:40 AM

Not like today's mugshots. Mr. Moore is standing with his hat on and holding a cigarette. Also, there are group shots. More here. (via The Phoblographer)
posted by caddis (21 comments total)

A treasure trove of haircut inspiration!
posted by The Whelk at 10:47 AM on August 19, 2013

Everything was better back then!

(except everything else that wasn't)

Let safecracker Guiseppe Fiori (alias Permontto) show you what swagger is. 5'6" with his hat on yet still probably seems taller than most.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:54 AM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

That is a really great find. Thanks for sharing it. Metafilter's credit just went up with me. So odd that they were mostly given the freedom to pose as they wanted, and that most of the criminals looked pleased to be having their pictures taken. I'll be looking at this all day.
posted by seasparrow at 10:56 AM on August 19, 2013

I was just debating FPP'ing this. That shot of Moore is perfect, and everything about "Harry Crawford" is...maybe not "grat," but a great read.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:56 AM on August 19, 2013

Thanks for posting this! And they say the movies glamorize crime . . .

The panache on display here is unbelievable. Probably has something to do with the fact that most of these guys seem to have been career criminals, so an arrest wasn't humiliating for them. It makes you wonder what the experience of being arrested was like in 1920.
posted by ostro at 11:03 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

It's interesting that the majority of the male criminals look reasonably well-groomed while more than half the female mugshots feature women who look like unkempt lunatics.
posted by elizardbits at 11:04 AM on August 19, 2013 [4 favorites]

De Gracy and Dalton look like a couple of serious villains.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:05 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

They look like they're from a fashion photoshoot.
Hey kid let's see some pouty lips.
posted by Sreiny at 11:07 AM on August 19, 2013

Also why do only the women's photos have an age? How am I supposed to compare their criminal career development to the men's? Sigh.
posted by elizardbits at 11:08 AM on August 19, 2013

And Frank Murray looks like Keith Carradine from Trouble in Mind.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:08 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

I think the difference between the men's pictures and the women's pictures comes down to hair -- the women's flyaway, dirty-looking hair is a big part of what makes them look so desperate, whereas the men's hair is either hidden by a hat or slicked way the hell down with Brylcreem.
posted by ostro at 11:12 AM on August 19, 2013

William Stanley Moore's got kind of a Denholm-Elliott-meets-Bob-Fosse thing goin' on there. Mama like.

Gaffney the Gunman was a happy, jolly soul,
With an old lead pipe and a buttoned lip,
And a month down in the hole!

I must know the secret to Frank Murray's pompadour. If he'd had a better lawyer he might have combed it out and gotten off on the resonable doubt that the man who committeed the crime was a good five inches shorter.

Gilbert Burleigh and Joseph Delaney: the artist's models for Goofus and Gallant.

How YOU doin', Patrick Riley?
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:13 AM on August 19, 2013

The footwear!
posted by notyou at 11:15 AM on August 19, 2013

Also, let's all take a minute and give thanks that nobody has ever tried to bring 1920s (women's) daywear back. What a weird time in clothing . . .
posted by ostro at 11:16 AM on August 19, 2013

Hannibal
posted by goethean at 11:25 AM on August 19, 2013

I like thinking about how before fingerprints and DNA were used to catalogue and track criminals, police had to use different types of identifying information in IDing a suspect. After scanning through these pictures, it's interesting to think about how posture/body language is a fairly unique on an individual basis and a trained eye could probably pick one of these guys out in a moving crowd even with their back turned to the observer if the investigator had studied their suspect's movement cues well enough. Fascinating.
posted by NoRelation at 11:27 AM on August 19, 2013

See also: "The forensic photography archive within the Justice & Police Museum was originally created by the New South Wales Police between 1912 and 1964. The archive contains an estimated 130,000 negatives and may be the biggest police photography collection of its type in the southern hemisphere. The images stem from every imaginable variety of law breaking across six decades of the 20th century. They include mug shots, accident scenes, crashes, murders, fires, forgeries and fingerprints, as well as Sydney streetscapes and domestic spaces."
posted by MonkeyToes at 11:28 AM on August 19, 2013

Also DeGracy = Robocop in an out-of-present-time alternate universe where he's a cold, unfeeling bank robber. "Dead or alive that dough is coming with me, see?"
posted by NoRelation at 11:32 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

After the marriage broke down she neglected to go through the difficult and expensive divorce process. Upon marrying her second husband in 1918 she was convicted of bigamy and sentenced to six months with light labour.

Well, that certainly seems fair.
posted by goethean at 11:37 AM on August 19, 2013

Double.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:41 AM on August 19, 2013

And Frank Murray looks like Keith Carradine from Trouble in Mind Lyle Lovett.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:01 PM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]