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Jewish World Review August 30, 2011 / 30 Menachem-Av, 5771 These arrestees really are framed By Dale McFeatters
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
For several years now, the American public has developed a curious fascination with mug shots, the head-and-shoulders photos that police take after booking suspects.
A quick check of the Web shows sites for Celebrity Mug Shots, Weirdest Mug Shots Ever, Top Mug Shots of 2010 and Most Outrageous Mug Shots.
Perhaps most chilling of all is the Multnomah County (Ore.) Sheriff's Office's site, Faces of Meth. It features mug shots taken on a suspect's first arrest on meth charges paired with a photo taken after the most recent. The deterioration of what for the most part look like regular people is appalling and unsettling.
Now mug shots from the '50s have shown up in the decorative arts.
Two young artists from Cincinnati came across in a Nevada antiques store a cache of black-and-white mug shots from 1955 discarded by the Alameda County, Calif., sheriff's office.
Tara Finke and Megan Scherer started a company, Larken Design, to sell digitally enhanced and retouched copies of photos of those arrested, who are not named and many of whom by now are quite elderly or dead.
An initial run of prints sold out and now there are plans for larger, poster-size prints, as well as images on notebooks and tote bags. An expanded line of mug-shot arts and crafts is to be unveiled at a big trade fair in Chicago in September.
There are undoubtedly legal issues to be sorted out, but the photos are public records; they are not copyrighted; they make no allegations about the subject; and the First Amendment would seem to trump any privacy issues.
Still, it could be unsettling to be invited to dinner by an artsy couple and find framed over the fireplace a much-enlarged mug shot of your great-uncle, the one the family only talked about in whispers -- especially if your hosts start to detect a strong family resemblance and excuse themselves to replace the silver with everyday tableware.
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