On the record

The four women on this page have all been in contact with the justice system and have therefore been registered in this book. They have all been photographed in the same way and have had some of their personal details recorded. Although the police and the judiciary system had been dealing with criminals for centuries, it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that the first systematic techniques were set up to register criminals. This was necessary for industrializing cities where the number of crimes grew alongside the population .

On this page, we see a police record from 1881. At this time there was no convenient system for registering criminals. Many records containing descriptions were created that officers had to dig through to find out if a suspect had a prior conviction. Suspects were examined thoroughly when brought to the police station. All kinds of personal characteristics were examined and recorded. The description helped the police to correctly identify suspects when, for example, they committed another crime. The identification system used by the Dutch police gradually became unusable due to the large number of registrations, and was therefore replaced by a new system.The Catholic illustration; 1891 An important part of the new personal registration was the ’mugshot’. This new technique allowed police departments to easily identify individuals.

Before we take a mugshot, it might be interesting to take a moment to look at the cover. Click below (or continue your tour directly to the mugshot)