Former officer describes violence by guards and inmates
Wednesday 7th October 2026 on 22:00 in
Denmark
A former Danish prison officer has described a culture of violence involving both staff and inmates, DR reports. Kim Knudsen says his 20 years in a specially secured prison unit left him with PTSD and unable to work full time.
Knudsen’s account appears in a new book, “The Regime’s Man”, written with journalist Casper Fauerholdt. He alleges that prison officers beat inmates, coordinated their accounts and lied in reports on the use of force.
Knudsen said he had experienced threats and violence at work, including having boiling water poured over him and being stabbed with a butter knife by a colleague. He said the incident that led him to quit, five years ago, came when someone threatened to kill him and his two children while they were in a car.
He also described a workplace where he felt unable to take sick leave. “When I said I was feeling terrible, they just asked when I would be back,” he told DR’s P1 Morgen programme.
Conditions in Danish prisons are under pressure, according to the article. The country has 4,300 prison places but 4,650 inmates, the Prison Officers’ Union says. Some single-occupancy cells now have bunk beds, allowing two inmates to share a room.
Union chairman René Larsen said prisons had a record number of inmates and a historically low number of officers. Danmarks Fængsler, the Danish prison service, is seeking to recruit more officers as it plans to build prisons and add about 2,000 places. This year’s intake to officer training was the largest in seven years, but has not resolved current staffing shortages.
Danmarks Fængsler director Ina Eliasen said she had not heard of the violence Knudsen described and called the account extremely serious. She said management acts decisively when it learns of similar cases, including reporting employees to police if they use violence against inmates. Eliasen added that the service had taken steps in recent years to prevent negative subcultures.
A 2020 study found that 13.5 per cent of Danish prison officers had PTSD. Eliasen said she was sorry that people had become so ill from working in the prison service.