rogues' gallery

Not to be confused with peanut gallery. For other uses, see Rogues gallery (disambiguation).

New York City Police Department rogues gallery, July 1909.

A rogues gallery (or rogues' gallery) is a police collection of pictures or photographs of criminals and suspects kept for identification purposes. The term is also used figuratively by extension for any group of shady characters or the line-up of 'mugshot' photographs that might be displayed in the halls of a dormitory or workplace.

History

In 1850, Allan Pinkerton founded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Pinkerton devised the Rogues’ Gallery^{[citation needed]} — a compilation of descriptions, methods of operation, hiding places, and names of criminals and their associates.

Inspector Thomas Byrnes of the late-19th-century New York City Police Department popularized the term with his collection of photographs of known criminals, which was used for witness identification. Byrnes published some of these photos with details of the criminals in Professional Criminals of America (1886).^[1]

See also

• Criminal record
• Mug shot
• Public enemy
• Wanted poster

References

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