The system, named bertillonage in his honor, consisted of recording eleven measurements of set parts of the head and body on a card which, accompanied by two photographs and additional physical details such as eye and hair color, established a unique, classable, and, most importantly, retrievable criminal record.
Replacing the unreliable system of eyewitness accounts, the bertillonage led to a marked increase in the number of arrests of multiple offenders and was subsequently adopted by police departments outside of France, such as New York City (1888), Argentina (1891), and Chicago (1894).
Soon after the turn of the century bertillonage was supplanted by the more reliable system of dactyloscopy or identification by fingerprints. Ironically, this change of method caused a growth in the number of specialized police photographers as it increased the need for records to be made of impressions of fingers and handprints found at the crime scene.
In 1883, the Parisian police adopted his anthropometric system, called signaletics or bertillonage. Bertillon identified individuals by measurements of the head and body, shape formations of the ear, eyebrow, mouth, eye, etc., individual markings such as tattoos and scars, and personality characteristics.
The measurements were made into a formula that referred to a single unique individual, and recorded onto cards which also bore a photographic frontal and profile portrait of the suspect (the "mug shot"). The cards were then systematically filed and cross-indexed, so they could be easily retrieved. In 1884, Bertillon used his method to identify 241 multiple offenders, and after this demonstration, bertillonage was adopted by police forces in Great Britain, Europe, and the Americas.
But bertillonage was difficult to implement. The measuring tools needed frequent recalibration and maintenance; the process was labor intensive, requiring rigorously trained, highly motivated and competent technicians, and was expensive. When individuals were measured several times, even well-trained officers made their measurements in different ways and sometimes failed to obtain the exact same numbers. Measurements could also change as the criminal aged. Eventually, police departments began to abandon bertillonage in favor of fingerprint identification, although some elements, such as the inventorying of basic information and features, scars, tattoos, and the mug shot, were retained.
AprÃs avoir visà les rÃcidivistes, le bertillonnage s'Ãtend aux  fous   trouvÃs  sur la voie publique, aux cadavres non identifiÃs de la morgue, aux Ãtrangers puis, aprÃs la mort de Bertillon, aux Ãtrangers interdits de sÃjour et, enfin, aux nomades, qui seront rÃpertoriÃs dans un carnet anthropomÃtrique d'identità en 1912[25]. Le systÃme de Bertillon aura aussi une influence sur la carte d'identità nationale[4]. La biomÃtrie, qui s'applique au fichage en France, s'enracine elle aussi dans le bertillonnage.
Les mÃthodes de Bertillon, qui aura rÃdigà des ouvrages traduits dans de nombreuses langues, sont reprises et adaptÃes par toutes les polices du monde. CitÃe deux cents fois dans le New York Times, cette gloire nationale reste le  policier  le plus illustre dans le monde à la fin du XIXe siÃcle, jusqu'à ce que le systÃme de classification des empreintes digitales supplante le bertillonnage[4].
38c6e68cf9