Alphonse Bertillon

Alphonse Bertillon ( born April 22, 1853 in Paris, † February 13, 1914 in Munsterlingen, Switzerland ) was a French criminologist and anthropologist. Developed by him anthropometric system for personal identification was named in his honor later Bertillonage.

Curriculum vitae

Alphonse Bertillon was born on 22 April 1853 as the second son of the then-known physician, statistician and Vice President of the Anthropological Society of Paris, Dr. Louis -Adolphe Bertillon in Paris. His grandfather was the naturalist and mathematician Achille Guillard.

Spent his youth Bertillon in Paris. The school he had to stop prematurely due to lack of performance and behavior. Bertillon was as choleric and pedant. In addition, he was often ill and suffered from severe migraines. He was given these circumstances early loner and was throughout his life contact and sealed.

Thanks to the intercession of his well- respected father, he was hired in March 1879 as assistant clerk at the Paris Police Prefecture. In this role he had mainly descriptions of offenders transferred to criminal flashcards. The usefulness of this index cards was doubtful in many ways. Bertillon remembered his father's work and came across the anthropological studies Adolphe Quetelet. This had come in the course of his investigations to the conclusion that there are no two people with the same body measurements.

Based on this knowledge Bertillon developed in the years 1879 to 1880 the first closed system for personal identification, thus making a significant contribution to scientific criminology.

His first attempts led by Bertillon at the consigned examination prisoners of the Paris police. The measurement results he recorded on index cards. This work earned him the ridicule of his colleagues in the prefecture of a more than once. Even then police prefect of Paris put Bertillon first report to the file and then threatened him even with a termination without notice, should it bother him again with his ideas. Bertillon's father was initially no less indignant, but then realized the potential of his son's work. With his support, and after a change at the top of the prefecture Bertillon was allowed to continue its work.

Bertillon had established that the identification of an increasing number of body measurements was accurate. With the acceptance of 11 body measurements, the risk of confusion between 191 304 to 1 was He felt this was adequate and therefore proposed to use the following 11 body measurements before: body length, arm span, sitting height, head length, head width, length of the right ear, width of the right ear ( later zygomatic width ), length of the left foot, length of the left middle and little finger and length of the left forearm.

The first major trial began in November 1882. Bertillon got permission to test his method for 3 months. He was allocated for this purpose its own space and two employees. In February 1883, he had already created 1,800 index cards. These were not alphabetically, but divided by the corresponding body measurements. The test run ended in February 1883 Shortly before he achieved what his critics thought impossible. Identification of a recidivist offender based on its body size. The sample period was extended then and Bertillon got more personnel assigned. By the end of 1882 he was able to prove 49 identifications. On February 1, 1888 Bertillon was promoted to head of the police detection service.

Although the bertillonsche system was subsequently used in many other countries, it remained constant criticism from the Criminal Investigation exposed. Most investigators it was too complex and the variety of data could be used only with the help of appropriate index cards. Bertillon then developed a DKV -called manhunt book with the descriptions of wanted or country Referenced people.

1893 Bertillon was awarded in recognition of his services the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour.

His reputation suffered but sensitive under the Dreyfus affair. In the trial for treason against the Jewish officer Bertillon appeared as graphological expert and said in several reports to be able to carry out the proof that Dreyfus was the author of the secret correspondence with the German Embassy in Paris.

Later, the anthropometric measurements were Resistance eventually complemented by two-piece offender photographs and Bertillon also against fingerprints. Bertillon was an opponent of fingerprint, which he believed to be inaccurate. Nevertheless, he himself in 1902 succeeded the first identification of a murderer in Europe on the basis of a fingerprint. However, the success could not be swayed Bertillon, who continued to reject the fingerprint data and in the subsequent period reluctant to talk about this case.

On the occasion of the World Exhibition in Liege gave the Paris Prefect of Police known that so far 12,614 recidivist offenders were identified by the developed system of Bertillon in Paris.

The theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911 finally revealed the error bertillonage. The thief Vincenzo Peruggia arrested in 1913 had left both on a glass screen as well as on a doorknob his fingerprints. These were already registered since 1909, but could not be found in the thousands according to body size assorted card boxes. By becoming aware of this weak point, the end of Bertillon's system was sealed.

Alphonse Bertillon became ill in 1913 and died on 13 February difficult 1914 in Munsterlingen in Switzerland. In his last months, he was almost completely blind. The award of the Legion of Honor rosette to tape failed due to his stubborn attitude. Bertillon was not willing to admit their own mistake when writing reports in the Dreyfus affair.

Shortly after his death triggered fingerprinting in France bertillonage, since their errors as the excessive complexity, the possibility of confusion and reliance on the accuracy of the measurements were always obvious. Some elements of his system remained but preserved in the criminal records department. Both Bertillonage and fingerprinting are each a biometric recognition process.

51923
de