Drexel University researcher Sharrona Pearl was trying to track down stories of people changing their appearance to avoid law enforcement. She read about everything from train robbers from the 1960s, to folks escaping drug cartels, and, more recently, criminals trying to dodge facial recognition software.
She found record after record of plastic surgeries performed after criminals were caught and convicted: countless cosmetic procedures performed in prisons from the ’60s through the late ’80s.