Last Updated on May 3, 2025 by Colby Droscher
Mugshots have long captured more than just the faces of criminals. They’ve also offered vivid glimpses into different eras of society. When these mugshots are provided with the added benefit of being colorized, they bring a profound new life to the past, making the subjects of the mugshots feel that much more immediate and real.
This collection of 17 colorized mugshots showcases everything from some of history’s most notable gangsters to the world’s petty thieves. Take a step back in time and feel as if you’re transported.
Craving more history in living colour? Browse our 25 Colorized Photos From the 1950s, meet historic American troublemakers in 15 Mugshots of the Most Infamous Criminals in American History, or jump eras with 31 Photos From Prohibition (1920-1933) That Perfectly Capture the Chaos of the Time. Scroll on and look each suspect squarely in the (now very real) eyes.
1. Al Capone mugshot at Alcatraz
Al Capone’s full federal inmate record (complete with fingerprints) is preserved in the National Archives’ Al Capone file.
2. Alphonse Bertillon, in 1913, demonstrating the two-part ‘mug shot’ method of photographing suspects that he pioneered
3. Mug shot of Charlie ‘Lucky’ Luciano, 38 years old
4. Mugshot of Pablo Escobar, 1977
5. Mug shot of William Stanley Moore, 1 May, 1925
6. Alice Cooke, 30 December, 1922
7. Mugshot of Johnny Cash taken at Folsom Prison in 1966
8. Mugshot of John Dodgson, circa 1930s
9. The colors are wonderfully ridiculous here
10. Mugshot of a boy in Rochester, New York, around 1914
11. An Australian mugshot in 1944
12. Those eyes have seen some things
13. Victorian mugshot – sentenced to four years behind bars for forgery
14. Mugshot of Eugenia Falleni
15. János Kádár, mugshot from 1933
16. Giuseppe Fiori Australian Mugshot 1924. Described as a “Safebreaker”
17. F Schmelz, mugshot taken in 20 June, 1930
