They're not exactly what you expect when someone says "1920s mugshots". In fact, the photos in the National Archives of Australia's latest exhibition were unusual even at the time they were taken.
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Underworld: Mugshots from the Roaring Twenties, on tour from Sydney Living Museums, depicts the photos and stories from the darker side of the 1920s.
In what was an internationally unique move, Sydney's police photographers in the 1920s captured candid mugshots of suspects in criminal cases such as drug dealers, sly-grog purveyors and small-time criminals.
The move to photograph suspects as if they were sitting for a portrait rather than a traditional mugshot was to help avoid prejudice when investigating the case further.
"The police wanted to have an image of a person that, for instance, they could show to a witness without prejudicing that witness," curator Nerida Campbell said.
"These are mugshots that have personality. The people haven't been told how to pose. Some of them are quite calm and relaxed. Some of them are slouching. Some of them are staring right down the camera, giving the police officer taking the photo the eye.
"It just gives you a remarkable insight, not only into the criminal world but into the world in which people lived at that time."
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The show is made up of more than 100 images reproduced from their original glass negatives, drawn from the collection at the Justice and Police Museum of suspects taken in by NSW Police between 1920 and 1930.
The exhibition - and the entire Justice and Police Museum collection of specials - depict a wide range of criminal behaviour. Many of the suspects depicted did go on to be charged with a crime, with the exhibition following the story of what happened when they had their day in court. Others were lucky enough not to be charged in the first place.
However, of the names featured in the exhibition, none were more notorious than Kate Leigh - the "Queen of the Underworld". She ran sly-grog shops around Sydney, which sold alcohol after 6pm - something that was illegal at the time.
"I found it interesting to look at the way that criminal behaviour changes over time," Ms Campbell said.
"The 1920s, as we know, was a period when there was a huge change in terms of the social, engineering, architectural, and cultural norms, and the criminal world followed that.
"We start seeing more and more young guys with bruised faces and their arms in slings, who've been done for joyriding in stolen cars. We know that there was an enormous uptake in car ownership during the 1920s.
"So you see these young guys who just can't resist the shiny new machines - many of them wouldn't even have seen their fathers and mothers drive a car, but they just can't resist taking it out for a turn. And it would stop when it ran out of petrol or hit a tree."