City of shadows: inner city crime & mayhem 1912-1948

The extensive collection of police forensic negatives held at the Justice & Police Museum casts a fascinating light on the shadowy underworld of Sydney between the wars.

Within this medium of crime and accident scene photographs we are able to view, sometimes in extraordinary detail, their physical milieu - the mean kitchens, bedrooms and parlours, the pubs, boarding houses, corner shops and residentials, the sheds, garages, back lanes, streets and byways of a Sydney that is both eerily strange but all too familiar.

In the mugshots we encounter people of that world - thieves, breakers, receivers, 'magsmen', 'spielers', 'urgers', 'gingerers', false pretenders, 'hotel barbers', shoplifters, dope users, prostitutes, makers of false oaths - and the occasional murderer.

Past exhibition

  • 19 November 2005 - 11 February 2007