For this month’s Curator’s Corner, we are taking a deeper look into the development and use of Identi-KITs. Identi-KITs were used by police to help the public create an image of a suspect. Police officers would use this kit to build a face from a selection of eyes, mouths, chins, foreheads, and hairstyles. This would help them when identifying and searching for a suspect. An Identi-KIT used by the Bradford Police throughout the 1970s and 1980s is on display in the Museum’s main gallery. Stop by the museum to see the Identi-KIT for yourself!
Since the beginning of modern policing in 1829, British police have sought technology to aid them in identifying suspects. Early technologies focused on recording as many details of those arrested as possible, to allow police to quickly identify criminals efficiently in the future.[1] In the late 1800s, Alphonse Bertillon, a French Police Officer, first applied the anthropological technique of anthropometry to policing, to create an identification system based on individual measurements.[2] Anthropometry is the systematic collection and correlation of measurements of the human body, one of the principle techniques of the 19th century disciple of physical anthropology.[3] His system was often referred to as the Bertillon System, which consisted of five measurements combined with photographs.[4] This system documented individual prisoners to ensure future recognition of recidivists and proof of their identity. This was the prevailing system for the apprehension of repeat criminals until fingerprint classification replaced it.
This standard of recorded and indexed measurements led to the practice of drawing suspects from witness statements to aid in police officer’s identification. Since the development of the Bertillon System and the standardisation of facial composites, police world-wide sought innovations and improvements to the way they identify suspects. During the 1950s, the notion of a hand assembled system of building facial composites appeared. In 1959, two Los Angeles police officers, Hugh McDonald and Harry Roger, began the commercial production of a system developed to break the face down into component facial features known as the Identi-KIT.[5]
The earliest kits were comprised of clear sheets called ‘foils’ that witnesses could stack to create a suspect’s face. Early kits were hand-drawn, but later kits employed photographs.[6] The Identi-KIT was first used in Britain in 1961 to identify the murderer of Elsie May Batten who was stabbed to death in the antique shop she worked in, in Charing Cross Road.[7] In the 1970s, Jacques Penry developed an updated version of a hand-assembled facial composite system known as the Photo-FIT.[8] The development of these kits, aided witnesses and officers alike to build up an image of suspects without having to rely on their ability to describe them verbally.[9]
After the 1970s and 1980s, police artists began moving back towards composite drawings, based on witness interviews, but a computerised version of the Identi-KIT was developed, known as the Identi-KIT 2000.
Come to the Museum to see the Identi-KIT that was actually used by the Bradford Police in the late 20th century and ask our Volunteer Tour Guides for more information about it!
[1] Paul Lawrence, ‘Policing, ‘Science’, and the Curious Case of Photo-FIT’, The Historical Journal, 63 (2020), p. 1011
[2] Alphonse Bertillon’, Wikipedia, 19 September 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Bertillon
[3] ‘Anthropometry’, 7 March 2019, https://www.britannica.com/science/anthropometry
[4] ‘Alphonse Bertillon’, Wikipedia
[5] Karen T. Taylor, Forensic Art and Illustration, London: Taylor & Francis (2000), 21
[6] Karen T. Taylor, Forensic Art and Illustration, 21-22
[7] Lawrence, ‘Policing, ‘Science’, and the Curious Case of Photo-FIT’, p. 1013
[8] Karen T. Taylor, Forensic Art and Illustration, 26
[9] Lawrence, ‘Policing, ‘Science’, and the Curious Case of Photo-FIT’, p. 1012
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