The Copenhagen Stocks House (Danish

Danish language

Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...

: Københavns Stokhus) was a prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

 in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

, Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

, named for the stocks

Stocks

Stocks are devices used in the medieval and colonial American times as a form of physical punishment involving public humiliation. The stocks partially immobilized its victims and they were often exposed in a public place such as the site of a market to the scorn of those who passed by...

 which used to be located at its premises. Originally a military prison, it was opened to civilian prisoners in 1741. The building was located on Øster Voldgade, opposite the present day National Gallery

Statens Museum for Kunst

Statens Museum for Kunst is the Danish national gallery located in Copenhagen....

.

History

The Stocks House was built in 1677. Prior to that physical punishment had taken place at Jarmers Tower

Jarmers Tower

Jarmer's Tower is an old ruined tower in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was once part of the Copenhagen moat. Jarmers Tower represents the remains of the original eleven towers which were once joined together as a part of the city’s medieval fortification....

. In 1722 to 1724 it is redesigned by Elias David Häusser

Elias David Häusser

Elias David Häusser was a German-Danish architect working in the Baroque and Rococo styles. He is most known for designing the first Christiansborg Palace which was almost completely destroyed in a fire in 1794...

.

In 1741 the Stocks House was opened to civilian prisoners and it became a place for people who had been sentenced to "slavery", that is prisoners sentenced to penal labour

Penal labour

Penal labour is a form of unfree labour in which prisoners perform work, typically manual labour. The work may be light or hard, depending on the context. Forms of sentence which involve penal labour include penal servitude and imprisonment with hard labour...

 in iron

Chain

A chain is a sequence of connected links.Chain may also refer to:Chain may refer to:* Necklace - a jewelry which is worn around the neck* Mail , a type of armor made of interlocking chain links...

. A destinction was made between "honest" and "dishonest" prisoners, the latter being those who had been beaten at the whipping post

Pillory

The pillory was a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse, sometimes lethal...

  (Danish: Kag), a punishment which was not just corporal but associated with loss of honor.

In 1783 the institution was dramatically expanded when the Greater Stocks House, with a capacity for 600 "slaves", was opened next to the old building.

On 30 December 1771 the use of "severe examination" (torture) was abolished by Johann Friedrich Struensee

Johann Friedrich Struensee

Count Johann Friedrich Struensee was a German doctor. He became royal physician to the mentally ill King Christian VII of Denmark and a minister in the Danish government. He rose in power to a position of “de facto” regent of the country, where he tried to carry out widespread reforms...

 butit was reintroduced after his fall. In 1837 torture is abolished.

On 1 April 1860 the Stocks House was closed by the Ministry of Justice

Ministry of Justice of Denmark

Ministry of Justice of Denmark is the Danish government ministry responsible for the general judicial system, including the police and the prosecution service, the courts of law, and prisons and the probation service...

, prisoners were transferred to the Vridsløselille State Prison which had been constructed in accordance with the Philadelphia System

Philadelphia System

The Philadelphia System was a penal system that put solitary prisoners into cells to contemplate their misdeeds and to plot a new life. The results of such solitary confinement included few reformations and numerous attempts at suicide. Pennsylvania built prisons at Pittsburgh and Philadelphia...

. In 1929 the building is demolished when Polytechnical University of Denmark

Technical University of Denmark

The Technical University of Denmark , often simply referred to as DTU, is a university just north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's first polytechnic, and is today ranked among Europe's leading engineering institutions, and the...

is expanded.