Anthropometry Circumstantial affairs Recidivist Commentary

Alphonse Bertillon biometrics

Anthropometry

• The Bertillonage system
• by Alphonse Bertillon
• measured ten physical features
• of the human body—
• giving numbers that could be filed
• and easily used to identify recidivists.
• Before fingerprinting was generally adopted,
• repeat offenders too easily escaped justice.
• General descriptions and photographs alone
• where too hard to find when needed,
• and recidivists consistently failed
• to give police the same name twice.

Circumstantial affairs

• Bertillon himself was highly eccentric,
• even insane.
• His paper on fingerprint analysis
• was based on altered and forged images
• of fingerprints.
• His analysis of a handwritten document
• helped wrongly convict Alfred Dreyfus
• of espionage.
• He was perhaps antisemitic.
• Others who used his methods overtly supported
• eugenics and racism.

Recidivist

• I am repeat offender.
• I’m not guilty of every deadly sin,
• but my sins are many, my confessions meager,
• and I make the same mistakes over and over.
• A dossier on me would be to thick to file.
• I work on the Sabbath.
• I eat more than I should.
• I drive a car that burns fossil fuels
• over the speed limit.
• I fart in public places.
• I make wisecracks.
• I criticize authorities.
• I doubt the faith of politicians.
• I forget my wedding anniversary.
• I repeatedly jaywalk.