35 Candid and Stylish Mugshots From the Roaring Twenties

January 16, 2022 Vintage Everyday 1920s, australia, law & criminal, mugshots, New South Wales, people, portraits, Sydney 0

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The Roaring Twenties was a golden era for criminals when rapid societal change led to the opening up of new illicit markets for entrepreneurial felons. Fast times bred new crimes creating policing challenges ranging from reckless joyriders to the emergence of the Mafia and razor gangs.

Hampton Hirscham, Cornellius Joseph Keevil, William Thomas O’Brien & James O’Brien, 1921

New South Wales Police Department photographers captured the zeitgeist of the era in these unexpectedly candid mug shots of cocaine sellers and addicts, sly-grog purveyors and small-time criminals, who frequented the cells of the Central Police Station in Sydney.