Into the jail!

The four women we see here were all sentenced to serve time in the Amsterdam prison. The cells in the capital were notorious. They were small, dark, and above all so filthy that no one wanted to be found dead in them. The supervision of the prisoners was also extremely poor. And with a bit of bad luck, you would find yourself sitting next to a drunk, puking cellmate.

The construction of the first cellular institution in Amsterdam began in 1847 on the Weteringschans. There was much debate on whether incarceration was the right system to discipline prisoners, but in the end, isolation was chosen over corporal punishment and forced labor. The drab, austere, and monotonous cell was seen as a means of education after which people would not commit the same crime again. After the abolition of flogging (1854) and capital punishment (1870), imprisonment was seen as the only good punishment after committing serious crimes. In fact, by 1900 it was the most common sentence. It was thought that during their incarceration, inmates would repent and return to society a better person.

There are finer books to be in. Once you were in a book like this, with your face on the record, getting arrested again would have had even greater consequences than before.

Time to close the book. For now.