Technology of Professionalism: The Identification of Criminals in Early Twentieth-Century Canada (From Criminal Justice History: An International Annual, Volume 15, P 165-188, 1994, Louis A Knafla, ed. -- See NCJ-167383)

• NCJ Number: 167389
• Author(s): G Marquis
• Date Published: 1994
• Length: 24 pages
• Sale Source: Greenwood Publishing Group
• Publication Type: Historical Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper examines how the technology associated with the identification of criminals was used by the police in early 20th- century Canada.

Abstract

The media associated fingerprinting with scientific crime fighting, a glamorous image that was encouraged by police officials. The reality of the technology of criminal identification, however, was more subtle and far more significant. The real authority of the police is derived not from law, but from the control of information. The power of the police within the state apparatus stemmed largely from their ability to trace the movements of repeat and potential offenders. For all its practical application to police work, criminal identification has served as a means of ordering elements of the population. The identification system and the national police network benefited Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) surveillance of the political left. At the municipal, provincial, and national levels, the police, judging by their extensive collections of fingerprint cards, mug shots, MO files, circulars, and other records, pioneered state surveillance in Canada. As Foucault notes, by the mid-20th century the police record had replaced the convict's passport of the previous century. In time, with the growth of the welfare state and corporate capitalism, police records would be surpassed in volume by those of the civil bureaucracy and the private sector. Yet, rarely was this information as sensitive as that held by the police, or its possession so power-enhancing. 65 notes