Aleksander Formajster - A black and white photo of a man with a bandage on his head

A mug shot or mugshot is a photographic portrait of a person from the waist up, typically taken after a person is arrested made with a purpose to have a photographic record for identification purposes by victims, the public and investigators. A typical mug shot is two-part, with one side-view, and one front-view. The paired arrangement may have been inspired by the 1865 prison portraits taken by Alexander Gardner of accused conspirators in the Lincoln assassination trial, though Gardner's photographs were full-body portraits with only the heads turned for the profile shots. The earliest mugshot photos of prisoners may have been taken in Belgium in 1843 and 1844. In the UK, the police of London started taking mugshots in 1846. By 1857, the New York City Police Department had a gallery where daguerreotypes of criminals were displayed.

Gulag refers to the Soviet Union's system of forced labor camps, which were established during Joseph Stalin's regime in the early 20th century. The term "Gulag" is an acronym for the Russian phrase "Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei," which means "Main Camp Administration." The Gulag system was used to imprison and punish political dissidents, criminals, and other perceived enemies of the Soviet state. Conditions in the camps were harsh, with prisoners subjected to long hours of hard labor, inadequate food and medical care, and brutal treatment by guards. It is estimated that millions of people died in the Gulag system over the course of its existence.