Tasmanian Convicts. Collection of Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office

A selection of portrait photos from our collection of early Tasmanian gaol records (1860-1902). By: Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office

A mug shot or mugshot is a photographic portrait of a person from the waist up, typically taken after a person is arrested made with a purpose to have a photographic record for identification purposes by victims, the public and investigators. A typical mug shot is two-part, with one side-view, and one front-view. The paired arrangement may have been inspired by the 1865 prison portraits taken by Alexander Gardner of accused conspirators in the Lincoln assassination trial, though Gardner's photographs were full-body portraits with only the heads turned for the profile shots. The earliest mugshot photos of prisoners may have been taken in Belgium in 1843 and 1844. In the UK, the police of London started taking mugshots in 1846. By 1857, the New York City Police Department had a gallery where daguerreotypes of criminals were displayed.

There have been many famous mugshots throughout history, but some of the most well-known ones include those of Al Capone, the notorious American gangster; Ted Bundy, the American serial killer; and Charles Manson, the American cult leader. Other famous mugshots include those of John Dillinger, the American bank robber; Adolf Hitler, the former German dictator; and Rosa Parks, the American civil rights activist. These mugshots have become iconic and have become associated with the crimes and personalities of the individuals depicted in them. Though it is generally considered unethical to make assumptions or judgments about an individual's criminal behavior based solely on their physical appearance, in criminology, there is a subfield known as criminal profiling, which often uses techniques such as analyzing mugshots to try to identify common physical traits or characteristics that may be associated with certain types of criminal behavior.