Samenvatting

This article is based on research in the archives of the Rijkswerkinrichting in Leiden, the Netherlands, which served as a penitentiary for female vagabonds and beggars between 1886 and 1907. At an average 48 years of age, women were old; about four in ten were confined more than once. Contrary to males in similar institutions, females were almost exclusively from the lower echelons of society, and very few had ever been married. While material conditions in confinement compared positively to the living conditions before confinement, mortality was high. Women, like female detainees these days, mostly performed menial work that offers little prospect for successful reintegration. Most had probably led rough lives, with alcohol abuse, poverty and familial strife. The confinement of these women probably served more as a temporary respite than as a solution for these women's problems.