You're nicked

Mugshots were invented in Britain in the 1840s as a weapon against crime, but they were taken up most enthusiastically in the United States, where the compulsory police portrait is almost a rite of passage. Giacomo Papi presents villains, stars and victims who have faced the lens.



Some of these are very familiar; others,like the one on the left, are not.

Sometimes police photographers indulged their imaginations: a transvestite accused of luring a woman into marriage is stripped ...