Women’s mug shots in Australia in the 20’s and…. the Greek experience

Yesterday, we were sent a link from the British newspaper Daily Mail with an article regarding mug shots of women that had been arrested and sent to prison in Australia in the 20’s. The mug shots included in the article are only a fraction of an impressive collection – consisting of 2.500 mug shots – that were shot by the photographers of New South Wales police station from 1910 until 1930. .

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103393/Womens-mug-shots-1920s-Australia.html

With the occasion of this link I remembered that in 2000, during the shooting of the documentary “I like hearts like mine” (direction G. Zervas) I visited as an assistant director the archive of the Police, which was then housed in Byronas, St. Dimitrios. What I remember is a basement full of photographic albums that contained photographs of crime scenes as well as mug shots of people arrested for various reasons, including political. There was also a room in one floor of the building with several movies. What these movies presented? I do not know, but I suspect that not even the person in charge was aware of the content of these movies. He later proposed to me, I assume as a favour, to go in the mornings and watch them (they had – if I remember well – an editing table – moviola), in order to record what the movies contained, for my own use and for the service’s… At that time my mind was elsewhere and my priorities lay with the movie we were shooting, and the truth is I didn’t think twice before I refused. However, since then the film-photographic archive of the police recurs to me as a possible area of research. At times I looked for it, at some point I was informed that it had moved to Marousi and since then I haven’t heard anything relevant. Does this archive still exist? Is anybody studying it? Has any public body taken charge of it? And what happens with the preservation and restoration of the material? Questions, you may justifiably say, untimely. The problems in our country at this point , are other. You will allow me to disagree. Nowadays, whatever means one chooses to fight, the target remains the future. And the future cannot exist without history - in other words, without concern for that which is called archive or collection. And I don’t claim that all these should be done today with money from the national budget. Not this. But the archives should not be scattered. To not be thrown as unnecessary or useless… We may never become rich, the most possible scenario is that we will live not even “comfortable” as the older generation was saying, but at least – as much as we can – let’s not be blighted. .

Nikos Mitrogiannopoulos