Coercive Networks in Copenhagen, c. 1730–1820

This chapter studies the Danish-Norwegian capital’s two main prisons: the prison workhouse and the extramural military prison known as Slaveriet (The Slavery). These prisons were central hubs in two interlocking systems of incarceration and penal labour that co-existed but functioned in quite different ways and with different rationales. Based on a dataset of prison stays in the two institutions, the chapter examines the ways in which they were linked to each other as well as to other institutional sites of coercion. Tracing the continuous circulation of convicts, the chapter analyses these links and their logics and asks what kind of penal experiences such a network has created. Finally, the chapter examines the tensions that marred this network and the way they shaped its make-up.