Penal-welfare and youth pockets: A historical case study of the indeterminate youth prison sanction in Denmark

Abstract

This article explores the concept ‘pockets of punitiveness’ by tracing the historical origins, transformations, and resilient features of the relatively indeterminate Danish Youth Prison Sanction (YPS), in force from 1933 to 1973. Drawing on archival and published sources from the 1890s to 1930s, the study examines how the YPS's ‘coercive confinement’ practices were shaped by key professionals, experts, and politicians within penal and social spheres. Situating these sources within influential Nordic welfare historiography, penal studies, and youth history, the analysis highlights the sanction's inter-institutional nature and deep rootedness in welfare governance emerging in the late nineteenth century. Building on a pluralistic understanding of historical time, the article suggests that youth deemed a(t) risk constitutes a ‘pocket’ within the fabric of the Danish welfare state. Ultimately, the study offers an expanded understanding of the resilience of these penal-welfare entanglements and the historical and structural dynamics shaping Danish youth crime control today.