An outstanding case in point is the series of stark black-and-white photographs of criminals and crime scenes taken by Weegee in New York during the 1930s and 1940s.

ECONOMIST: Most-wanted photography

But long before Weegee (whose real name was Arthur Fellig) pandered to popular prejudices about the differentness of criminals, photography was used by criminologists influenced by crude Darwinian ideas about race, heredity and criminality to try to confirm their assumption that villains were somehow physically distinguishable from law-abiding citizens.

ECONOMIST: Most-wanted photography