An underage Mug shot

For every person that lays their eyes on the picture above considers it to be a terrible deed done to an extremely young child. However the story behind the mug shot is rather a combination of both an adorable and hilarious account.

Alphonse Bertillon was born on April 24th in 1853 and worked as a French police officer, using the techniques of anthropometry in solving cases by identifying criminals through physical measurements. In simpler words, Bertillon was the developer of the mug shot technique, used to this day, for keeping a record of a convict’s physical identification. It was in 1888 that Alphonse made mug shots a standardized process.

The mug shot above features Francois Bertillon who happens to be the son of the developer of this technique. As appalling as the photograph may seem with the young child’s solemn oblivious expression, it increases in hilarity when you get to know what the young soul was convicted off. This 2 year old child was caught red handed nibbling on pears from a basket on 17th October 1893, which lead for his father to subject him to an experiment on his newly developed technique and to capture the little thief as a record of his unforgivable crime.

“If you’re old enough to be arrested, you’re old enough to carry a gun.”
–Pat Paulsen