Online exhibits
Criminal albums
The Images of Power
The Museum of Justice has around 10,000 criminal portraits in its collection. Today most of these are digitized. These “criminal albums” were produced by the police in Kristiania between 1864 and 1915 and used for the identification of criminals.
Here you can see our registrator at work and learn a little about the history of these unique albums.
Revolutionary technology
At first, only the most dangerous and “spectacular” criminals were photographed, but already from 1866 we see more systematic photography of arrestees and prisoners in Kristiania (today Oslo).
The police in Kristiania hired photographer Daniel Georg Nyblin as their permanent photographer. The image below shows the very first page of the first album. The criminals Friedrich Wilhelm Priess and Knud Fredrik Christian Simonsen. They were sentenced to death and beheaded for murder in 1864. The woman is Priess’ girlfriend, Caroline Schmidt, who was also involved in the case.
In the earliest albums, several penal institutions are represented. We find slaves from Akershus penal institution, prisoners from Botsfengselet and both male and female prisoners from the penitentiary in Kristiania. The male prisoners are clearly in the majority. The early albums are very sparing with information. The prisoner’s name and number are given. Sometimes it is stated which institution the person served his sentence at, and occasionally nicknames are mentioned.
From the 1880s onwards, we see that the police begin to enter information such as year of birth, description, place of residence, crime and previous convictions. Serious crimes such as robbery, violence and murder are among the exceptions. There is one crime in particular that is recurring: theft.
The most common criminal is a poor, working-class man serving a few months’ sentence for petty theft, often for the third, fourth, or fifth time.
In the 19th century, the minimum age for criminal activity in Norway was 10. This means that in these albums we will encounter registered and punished criminals as young as 11-12 years old.
Today you can browse the images at Digitaltmuseum.org and search by name.
2017, Hilde Olsø
