Museum of the Prefecture of police of Paris is where it should be – in the police station 5 district of the capital, on the third floor. The building is gloomy, still the police station. But the Museum itself pays for all aesthetic inconvenience.

The history of the Museum began in 1900 at the Paris exhibition there was organized an exhibition of documents and evidence submitted by the Prefecture of police. Nine years later, the prefect of police Louis Lepine decided to create on the basis of a temporary exhibition a permanent Museum. Its main theme is the fight against crime in France from the seventeenth century to the end of the world. But there is also quite modern exhibits.

The history of the French police is curious and instructive. Napoleon came to power, only to discover that the incapacity of the police: on country roads it was impossible to move around due to gangs of robbers. The Emperor suppressed banditry severe measures. He created the Prefecture of police, putting at the head of the unscrupulous, but the most effective Minister, Fouche, who served all in a row.

In the future, the fight against crime was in France with the application as non-standard methods. In 1811, the Prefecture was the escaped convict Look and offered his services. In the Museum you can learn how Vidocq formed a special team of former criminals – thus was born the French criminal police Surete.

The separate exposition tells about the birth of the first effective method of identification proposed a simple clerk in the Prefecture by Alphonse Bertillon. It now has computer banks fingerprints and genetic examination, and in the nineteenth century to identify the man, who identified himself by another name, was incredibly difficult. Bertillon devised a system of measurement and comparison of various parameters of the human body – growth, length and volume of the head, the length of the fingers and toes. February 20, 1883, he discovered that the prisoner, who identified himself as DuPont, is actually a criminal by the name of Martin. So Bertillon was the first to introduce in criminology research methods, and the system called by his name – bertillonage. It was used worldwide until he could compare fingerprints.

On the stands of the Museum displays weapons and police uniforms, gun crimes, and even a real guillotine, which was executed by French criminals. The entrance to the Museum is free.