Alphonse Bertillon

Nov 20, 2023

Alphonse Bertillon, the developer of a system of identification via body measurements for identifying crime suspects with an existing criminal history, is explored in this podcast. The most intriguing topics include his positive achievements, problematic issues, his background and childhood, early life fascination with the human skeleton, organizing criminal records, his involvement in high-profile criminal cases, and the downfall of the Bertillon System due to his arrogance and refusal to accept criticism.

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Introduction

00:00 • 2min

Alphonse Bertillon: A Complex Figure in Police Innovation

02:05 • 2min

Alphonse Bertillon's Background and Childhood

03:49 • 8min

Alphonse Bertillon's Early Life and Fascination with the Human Skeleton

11:42 • 4min

Alphonse Bertillon: Organizing Criminal Records

15:18 • 10min

The Life and Career of Alphonse Bertillon

25:10 • 7min

The Downfall of the Bertillon System

32:12 • 13min

Cooking, Social Media, Subscription, and Sponsor Promotions

44:52 • 3min

Bertillon developed a system of identification via body measurements that was designed to identify whether crime suspects had an existing criminal history. But his contributions to police work have been occluded by some terrible missteps.

Research:

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Alphonse Bertillon". Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Apr. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alphonse-Bertillon
“Identifying Prisoners.” St. Louis Globe-Democrat. December 16, 1886. https://www.newspapers.com/image/571277110/?terms=Alphonse%20Bertillion&match=1
Gates, Kelly. “Our Biometric Future: Facial Recognition Technology and the Culture of Surveillance.” NYU Press. 2011.
Fornabai, Nanette L. “Criminal Factors: ‘Fantômas’, Anthropometrics, and the Numerical Fictions of Modern Criminal Identity.” Yale French Studies, no. 108, 2005, pp. 60–73. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/4149298
Fosdick, Raymond B. “The Passing of the Bertillon System of Identification.” Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 6, no. 3, 1915, pp. 363–69. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1132744
Hoobler, Thomas and Dorothy. “The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection.” Little, Brown, and Co. 2009.
Levendowski, Amanda, “Face Surveillance Was Always Flawed.” Public Books. Nov. 30, 2021. https://www.publicbooks.org/face-surveillance-was-always-flawed/
Mouat, F. J. “Notes on M. Bertillon’s Discourse on the Anthropometric Measurement of Criminals.” The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 20, 1891, pp. 182–98. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2842237
Wang, Hansi Lo. “Meet Alphonse Bertillon, The Man Behind The Modern Mug Shot.” NPR. March 8, 2016. https://www.npr.org/2016/03/08/469174753/meet-alphonse-bertillon-the-man-behind-the-modern-mug-shot
Daniel V. The Social History of Disaster Victim Identification in the United States, 1865 to 1950. Acad Forensic Pathol. 2020 Mar;10(1):4-15. doi: 10.1177/1925362120941336
Helfand, Jessica. “Alphonse Bertillon and the Troubling Pursuit of Human Metrics.” The MIT Press Reader. May 5. 2021. https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-troubling-pursuit-of-human-metrics/
“Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914).” National Library of Medicine. Visible Proofs: Forensic Views of the Body. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/visibleproofs/galleries/biographies/bertillon.html
Farebrother, R. and Champkin, J. (2014), Alphonse Bertillon and the measure of man: More expert than Sherlock Holmes. Significance, 11: 36-39. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2014.00739.x
Guthrie, Glenice J., and Sharon Jenkins. “Bertillon Files: An Untapped Source of Nineteenth-Century Human Height Data.” Journal of Anthropological Research, vol. 61, no. 2, 2005, pp. 201–15. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3630855

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