Use photos of well known celebrities to capture fugitives

Police hunting a teen burglar in the New Zealand city Christchurch have circulated a mug shot of 58-year-old British actor Robbie Coltrane who, they say, has a strong resemblance to a young suspect they are looking for.

Posters bearing a photograph of Coltrane, who portrayed the giant Hagrid in the "Harry Potter" movie series and who also portrayed the hard-drinking, crime fighting criminal psychologist Eddie Fitzgerald in the long-running British television series "Cracker." were dropped by police in last August in mailboxes around the city centre where the burglar has been most active. They were careful to point out in the posters that Robbie Coltrane is not the burglar they are looking for. The message in the poster did say, "But imagine him aged 16 with lank, greasy hair and you have the picture."

Barred by New Zealand law from publishing or circulating pictures of juvenile offenders, the police hit on the idea of using a photo of Coltrane, who they say is similar in appearance to the burglar.

"It's a provocative thing to get people to read our crime-prevention information," Christchurch police Sgt. Phil Dean said after the posters were distributed. The police however did not seek Coltrane’s permission for the mail drop.

This concept is extremely interesting because many ordinary people look like well known movies stars, politicians and even murderers. For example;

Roger Vancamelbecke looks like James Dean, the Hollywood actor who died many years ago. Ray Ballard looks like movie star and singer, Sammy Davis. Steven Rose looks like actor, Woody Allen. Hraham Cartwright looks like actor Robert De Niro, Lissa Statham looks like actress Angelina Jolie, Lucy Small looks like actress Cameron Diaz. Sherrie Robinson looks like the late Princes Diana. Guy Ingle looks like Prince Charles, Tina Faye looks like vice-president nominee, Sarah Palin.

Many years ago, Life Magazine printed 50 look-alike photos, one person from every state who looked like the late president Eisenhower. A good example of using doubles took place during the Second World War when Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery had a double (Clifton James) take his place in order to fool the Germans into believing that the field marshal was in London,England when in fact he was somewhere else. Josef Stalin during the 1940s-50s had a double called, Rashid. Winston Churchill during the 1940's; had Norman Shelley as his double. The list of famous men using the services of look-a-likes is very long.

Years ago when I was giving an address at a United Nations crime conference, a number of Polish citizens had mistaken me for Lech Wałęsa, the former president of Poland.

It has been said that there are no two people in the world that look alike other than twins. That is not true. There are many people who look alike and if you cut their hair in the same manner and dress them in the same way, you would have a real problem trying to distinguish the difference.

Often victims of crimes are asked to look at the photos of convicted criminals and pick out the person they think attacked or robbed them. Many times, they have picked pictures of men or women who were still in prison when the offences took place or are dead and in some instances, innocent persons whose photos are in the mug shot books.

Admittedly, a good police artist may be able to draw the image of what the victim thinks the offender looked like but more often than not, the sketch is not very close to the exact likeness. The reason being that many people forget what the attacker looked like because of the trauma they have undergone.

Suppose instead of using mug shots (which is always risky if the face of the real attacker isn’t in the mug shot book) use the faces of other people who are definitely not the real culprits. There are only so many structures of the human face and a forensic scientist could put as many faces of each race into his computer and then create different poses of each face with each pose having a different hair style, clean shaven and not, wearing glasses and not, etc. In the end, he would have many thousands of different faces but in the long run, it might very well assist the victims in identifying the real culprit by looking at a picture of someone whose face looks similar. Once the face that looks similar is seen by the victim, the image will ring a bell in the victim’s mind and from that image, the artist can make the necessary changes that may very well end up being an exact likeness of the real culprit.

In the burglary event which took place in New Zealand, the police suggested that the populace imagine what actor Robbie Coltrane would look like if he was 16. A police artist could use the actor's picture and draw a picture of a 16-year-old who has the same facial structures as the actor. That way, they will really know what the suspect looks like.

Often we see people on the street who we first mistaken as someone we know or someone that we thought we knew. Their faces are not necessarily the same but the structures of their faces are similar. It’s that similarity of face structures that rings the bell in our minds that draws our attention to our memories of people we have known or seen in the past. It is for this reason that I think showing the faces of many people to victims of crime that may ring the bell in their minds that makes the concept I have proposed, feasible.