(Australia) Thousands of Prison Portraits Captured in 15 jails Over 50 Years in Digital Archive #announcements #photographs #records
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Jan Meisels Allen
Tens of thousands of prison portraits captured in 15 jails over a 50-year period are now accessible in a remarkable online database.
In recent years the NSW State Archives digitized 46,000 images and collated them in an exhibition titled Captured: Portraits of Crime.
The searchable database may be accessed at: https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/archives/collections-and-research/guides-and-indexes/node/1566/browse
In trying it out I used the name “Cohen” and a number of hits were received. For Henry Cohen it gave a prisoner’s photo, the jail (gaol) name, given and surname of inmate, date and place of birth, any alias the prisoner might have used and the date of the photo. On the record there is information on the person’s trade and religion as well as hair and eye color. There is also information on previous convictions.
Jan Meisels Allen Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee
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