The Rhetoric of the Prison Photograph
This article deals with portraits of prisoners from the end of the nineteenth century up until 1929, which are kept at the archives of the Prison Commission. The photograph was at the time seen as objective, neutral and truthful and through this rhetoric, also considered as evidence. At the same time as this view of the photograph existed, it was an instrument which was used not only to reflect, but also to construct an image or an understanding of reality.
The article deals with the relation between the prison photographs and bourgeois portraits. At first the prison photographs were made according to the same ideals as the bourgeois portraits, which did not produce the expected divide between criminals and others. Through rules and regulations a more suitable image of the criminal was eventually developed. The prison photograph is therefore seen as a meeting place, which reflects values and shows how truths were chosen, organized and confirmed.
The prison portraits were consequently used as a power tool, although they also contained matters of resistance. They were objectifying exhibition rooms where the prisoner could be studied and they included the possibility to put a face to a name and description. They were in that perspective used as devices to identify and categorize recidivists. The photograph characterized the prisoners as visible, recognisable, and more controllable individuals, but also categorized as part of a group: The Dangerous Others.
Why so few criminal women were portrayed is also a concern of the article. The production of photographs of criminal women, with the same idiom as those taken of criminal men, was seen as problematic since photographs were considered as truthful reflections of reality. Due to such an understanding of the photographic image, portraits of criminal women would be seen as factual pictures of womanhood, which was highly problematic in a period when women’s character and position was vividly debated.
