How did the FBI database of shoe soles develop?
The database at the FBI has actually been around since 1935. They used to have pictures of heels and soles in a file cabinet. Back then, all the manufactures were in this country and they sent anything to the FBI that the agency wanted. Of course then, there weren’t so many athletic shoes. There was Pro-Ked, Converse, Chuck Taylor, Uniroyal, Goodyear—some of the rubber companies had their own shoes and they were all gum rubber athletic shoes of very poor quality by today’s standards. It was not until the late 1950s and early 1960s that specialty athletic shoes started being produced. The FBI shoe database was first computerized in the early 1980s on a mainframe, and we then redid it on a PC in 1991. I managed the database for about 12 years. How do you get all the sneakers? Do you receive new models from Nike as they come off the line? We have about 80 manufacturers or importers that put out catalogues depicting the bottoms of their shoes, including of course Nike and Reebok. These cat
