Penal labour

Type of forced labour performed by prisoners

"Penal servitude" redirects here. For the 1928 film, see Penal Servitude (film).

"Hard labor" redirects here. For other uses, see Hard labor (disambiguation).

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Penal labour" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

Male convicts sewing at the Văcărești prison in Bucharest, Romania, 1930s. Female convicts chained together by their necks for work on a road. Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika c.1890–1927. Part of a series on

Forced labour and slavery

Contemporary

* Child labour
* Child soldiers
* Conscription
* Debt
* Forced marriage
* Bride buying
* Child marriage
* Wife selling
* Forced prostitution
* Human trafficking
* Peonage
* Penal labour
* Contemporary Africa
* 21st-century jihadism
* Sexual slavery
* Wage slavery

Historical

Antiquity

* Egypt
* Babylonia
* Greece
* Rome

Medieval Europe

* Ancillae
* Black Sea slave trade
* Byzantine Empire
* Kholop
* Prague slave trade
* Serfs
* History
* In Russia
* Emancipation
* Thrall
* Venetian slave trade
* Balkan slave trade

Muslim world

* Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate
* Slavery in Al-Andalus ‎
* Baqt
* Contract of manumission
* Bukhara slave trade
* Crimean slave trade
* Khazar slave trade
* Khivan slave trade
* Ottoman Empire
* Avret Esir Pazarları
* Barbary Coast
* slave trade
* pirates
* Sack of Baltimore
* Slave raid of Suðuroy
* Turkish Abductions
* Concubinage
* history
* Ma malakat aymanukum
* Avret Esir Pazarları
* Harem
* Abbasid harem
* Ottoman Imperial Harem
* Safavid harem
* Qajar harem
* Jarya/Cariye
* Odalisque
* Qiyan
* Umm walad
* Circassian slave trade
* Saqaliba
* Slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate
* Slavery in Volga Bulgaria
* 21st century

Atlantic slave trade

* Bristol
* Brazil
* Database
* Dutch
* Middle Passage
* Nantes
* New France
* Panyarring
* Spanish Empire
* Slave Coast
* Thirteen colonies

Topics and practice

* Conscription
* Ghilman
* Mamluk
* Devshirme
* Blackbirding
* Coolie
* Corvée labor
* Field slaves in the United States
* Treatment
* House slaves
* Saqaliba
* Slave market
* Slave raiding
* Child soldiers
* White slavery

Naval

* Galley slave
* Impressment
* Pirates
* Shanghaiing
* Slave ship

By country or region

Sub-Saharan Africa

* Contemporary Africa
* Trans-Saharan slave trade
* Red Sea slave trade
* Indian Ocean slave trade
* Zanzibar slave trade
* Angola
* Chad
* Comoros
* Ethiopia
* Mali
* Mauritania
* Niger
* Nigeria
* Seychelles
* Somalia
* Somali slave trade
* South Africa
* Sudan
* Zanzibar

North and South America

* Pre-Columbian America
* Aztec
* Americas indigenous
* U.S. Natives
* United States
* Field slaves
* female
* Contemporary
* maps
* partus
* prison labor
* Slave codes
* Treatment
* interregional
* Human trafficking
* The Bahamas
* Canada
* Caribbean
* Barbados
* British Virgin Islands
* Trinidad
* Code Noir
* Latin America
* Brazil
* Lei Áurea
* Colombia
* Cuba
* Haiti
* revolt
* Restavek
* (Encomienda)
* Puerto Rico

East, Southeast, and South Asia

* Human trafficking in Southeast Asia
* Bhutan
* Brunei
* China
* Booi Aha
* Laogai
* penal system
* India
* Debt bondage
* Chukri System
* Indonesia
* Japan
* comfort women
* Korea
* Kwalliso
* Malaysia
* Maldives
* Slavery in the Mongol Empire
* Thailand
* Yankee princess
* Vietnam

Australia and Oceania

* Australia
* Human trafficking
* Blackbirding
* Slave raiding in Easter Island
* Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea
* Blackbirding in Polynesia

Europe and North Asia

* Sex trafficking in Europe
* Britain
* Denmark
* Dutch Republic
* Germany in World War II
* Malta
* Norway
* Poland
* Portugal
* Romania
* Russia
* Spain
* Sweden

North Africa and West Asia

* Afghanistan
* Algeria
* Bahrain
* Egypt
* Human trafficking in the Middle East
* Iran
* Iraq
* Jordan
* Kuwait
* Lebanon
* Libya
* Morocco
* Oman
* Palestine
* Saudi Arabia
* Syria
* Tunisia
* Qatar
* Yemen
* United Arab Emirates

Religion

* Bible
* Christianity
* Catholicism
* Mormonism
* Islam
* Judaism
* Baháʼí Faith

Opposition and resistance

* 1926 Slavery Convention
* Abolitionism
* U.K.
* U.S.
* Abolitionists
* Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention
* Anti-Slavery International
* Blockade of Africa
* U.K.
* U.S.
* Colonization
* Liberia
* Sierra Leone
* Compensated emancipation
* Freedman
* manumission
* Freedom suit
* Slave Power
* Underground Railroad
* songs
* Slave rebellion
* Slave Trade Acts
* International law
* Third Servile War
* 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution
* Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom
* Abolition of slave trade in Persian gulf [fa]

Related

* Common law
* Indentured servitude
* Unfree labour
* Fugitive slaves
* laws
* Great Dismal Swamp maroons
* List of slaves
* owners
* last survivors of American slavery
* Marriage of enslaved people (United States)
* Slave narrative
* films
* songs
* Slave name
* Slave catcher
* Slave patrol
* Slave Route Project
* breeding
* court cases
* Washington
* Jefferson
* J.Q. Adams
* Lincoln
* Emancipation Proclamation
* 40 acres
* Freedmen's Bureau
* Iron bit
* Emancipation Day

* v
* t
* e

Penal labour is a term for various kinds of forced labour[1] that prisoners are required to perform, typically manual labour. The work may be light or hard, depending on the context.[2] Forms of sentence involving penal labour have included involuntary servitude, penal servitude, and imprisonment with hard labour. The term may refer to several related scenarios: labour as a form of punishment, the prison system used as a means to secure labour, and labour as providing occupation for convicts. These scenarios can be applied to those imprisoned for political, religious, war, or other reasons as well as to criminal convicts.

Large-scale implementations of penal labour include labour camps, prison farms, penal colonies, penal military units, penal transportation, or aboard prison ships.

## Punitive versus productive labour[edit]

Punitive labour, also known as convict labour, prison labour, or hard labour, is a form of forced labour used in both the past and the present as an additional form of punishment beyond imprisonment alone. Punitive labour encompasses two types: productive labour, such as industrial work; and intrinsically pointless tasks used as primitive occupational therapy, punishment, or physical torment.

Sometimes authorities turn prison labour into an industry, as on a prison farm or in a prison workshop. In such cases, the pursuit of income from their productive labour may even overtake the preoccupation with punishment or reeducation as such of the prisoners, who are then at risk of being exploited as slave-like cheap labour (profit may be minor after expenses, e.g. on security). This is sometimes not the case, and the income goes to defray the costs of the prison.

Victorian inmates commonly worked the treadmill. In some cases, it was productive labour to grind grain (an example of using convict labour to meet costs); in others, it served no purpose. Similar punishments included turning the crank machine or carrying cannonballs.[3] Semi-punitive labour also included oakum-picking: teasing apart old tarry rope to make caulking material for sailing vessels.

### British Empire[edit]

Further information: Penal Servitude Act

Prisoners at the treadmill in Pentonville Prison, London, 1895

Imprisonment with hard labour was first introduced into English law with the Criminal Law Act 1776 (16 Geo. 3. c. 43),[4] also known as the "Hulks Act", which authorised prisoners being put to work on improving the navigation of the River Thames in lieu of transportation to the North American colonies, which had become impossible due to the American War of Independence.[5]

The Penal Servitude Act 1853 (16 & 17 Vict. c. 99), [6] substituted penal servitude for transportation to a distant British colony, except in cases where a person could be sentenced to transportation for life or for a term not less than fourteen years. Section 2 of the Penal Servitude Act 1857 (20 & 21 Vict. c. 3)[7] abolished the sentence of transportation in all cases and provided that in all cases a person who would otherwise have been liable to transportation would be liable to penal servitude instead. Section 1 of the Penal Servitude Act 1891[8] makes provision for enactments which authorise a sentence of penal servitude but do not specify a maximum duration. It must now be read subject to section 1(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1948.

Sentences of penal servitude were served in convict prisons and were controlled by the Home Office and the Prison Commissioners. After sentencing, convicts would be classified according to the seriousness of the offence of which they were convicted and their criminal record. First time offenders would be classified in the Star class; persons not suitable for the Star class, but without serious convictions would be classified in the intermediate class. Habitual offenders would be classified in the Recidivist class. Care was taken to ensure that convicts in one class did not mix with convicts in another.

Penal servitude included hard labour as a standard feature. Although it was prescribed for severe crimes (e.g. rape, attempted murder, wounding with intent, by the Offences against the Person Act 1861) it was also widely applied in cases of minor crime, such as petty theft and vagrancy, as well as victimless behaviour deemed harmful to the fabric of society. Notable recipients of hard labour under British law include the prolific writer Oscar Wilde (after his conviction for gross indecency), imprisoned in Reading Gaol.

Labour was sometimes useful. In Inveraray Jail from 1839 prisoners worked up to ten hours a day. Most male prisoners made herring nets or picked oakum (Inveraray was a busy herring port); those with skills were often employed where their skills could be used, such as shoemaking, tailoring or joinery. Female prisoners picked oakum, knitted stockings or sewed.[3]

Forms of labour for punishment included the treadmill, shot drill, and the crank machine.[3]

Treadmills for punishment were used for decades in British prisons beginning in 1818; they often took the form of large paddle wheels some 20 feet in diameter with 24 steps around a six-foot cylinder. Prisoners had to work six or more hours a day, climbing the equivalent of 5,000 to 14,000 vertical feet. While the purpose was mainly punitive, the mills could have been used to grind grain, pump water, or operate a ventilation system.[9]

Shot drill involved stooping without bending the knees, lifting a heavy cannonball slowly to chest height, taking three steps to the right, replacing it on the ground, stepping back three paces, and repeating, moving cannonballs from one pile to another.[3]

The crank machine was a device which turned a crank by hand which in turn forced four large cups or ladles through sand inside a drum, doing nothing useful. Male prisoners had to turn the handle 6,000–14,400 times over the period of six hours a day (1.5–3.6 seconds per turn), as registered on a dial. The warder could make the task harder by tightening an adjusting screw.[3]

Convict labourers in Australia in the early 20th century

The British penal colonies in Australia between 1788 and 1868 provide a major historical example of convict labour, as described above: during that period, Australia received thousands of transported convict labourers, many of whom had received harsh sentences for minor misdemeanours in Britain or Ireland.

As late as 1885, 75% of all prison inmates were involved in some sort of productive endeavour, mostly in private contract and leasing systems. By 1935, the portion of prisoners working had fallen to 44%, and almost 90% of those worked in state-run programmes rather than for private contractors.[10]

According to section 45(1) of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998[11], prisoners are excluded from the national minimum wage.

#### England and Wales[edit]

Prisoners picking oakum at Coldbath Fields Prison in London, circa 1864

Penal servitude was abolished for England and Wales by section 1(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1948.[12] Every enactment conferring power on a court to pass a sentence of penal servitude in any case must be construed as conferring power to pass a sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term of penal servitude for which a sentence could have been passed in that case immediately before the commencement of that Act.

Imprisonment with hard labour was abolished by section 1(2) of that Act.

#### Northern Ireland[edit]

Penal servitude was abolished for Northern Ireland by section 1(1) of the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1953.[13] Every enactment which operated to empower a court to pass a sentence of penal servitude in any case now operates so as to empower that court to pass a sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term of penal servitude for which a sentence could have been passed in that case immediately before the commencement of that Act.

Imprisonment with hard labour was abolished by section 1(2) of that Act.

#### Scotland[edit]

Penal servitude was abolished in Scotland by section 16(1) of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1949 on 12 June 1950, and imprisonment with hard labour was abolished by section 16(2) of the act.

Every enactment conferring power on a court to pass a sentence of penal servitude in any case must be construed as conferring power to pass a sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term of penal servitude for which a sentence could have been passed in that case immediately before 12 June 1950. But this does not empower any court, other than the High Court, to pass a sentence of imprisonment for a term exceeding three years.

See section 221 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975 and section 307(4) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.

### China[edit]

Further information: Laogai, Re-education through labor, and Xinjiang internment camps

In pre-Maoist China, a system of labour camps for political prisoners operated by the Kuomintang forces of Chiang Kai-shek existed during the Chinese Civil War from 1938 to 1949. Young activists and students accused of supporting Mao Zedong and his communists were arrested and re-educated in the spirit of anti-communism at the Northwestern Youth Labor Camp.[14]

After the communists took power in 1949 and established the Communist China, laojiao (Re-education through labour) and laogai (Reform through labour) was (and still is in some cases) used as a way to punish political prisoners. They were intended not only for criminals, but also for those deemed to be counter-revolutionary (political and/or religious prisoners).[15] According to an Al Jazeera special report on slavery, China has the largest penal labour system in the world today. Often these prisoners are used to produce products for export to the West.[16][failed verification] Xinjiang internment camps represent a major[quantify] source of penal labour in China according to controversial expert, Adrien Zenz.[17] Since 2002, some prisoners have been eligible to receive payment for their labour.[18][19]

### France[edit]

Prison inmates can work[20] either for the prison (directly, by performing tasks linked to prison operation, or for the Régie Industrielle des Établissements Pénitentiaires, which produces and sells merchandise) or for a private company, in the framework of a prison/company agreement for leasing inmate labour.[21] Work ceased being compulsory for sentenced inmates in France in 1987. From the French Revolution of 1789, the prison system has been governed by a new penal code.[22] Some prisons became quasi-factories, in the nineteenth century, many discussions focused on the issue of competition between free labour and prison labour. Prison work was temporarily prohibited during the French Revolution of 1848. Prison labour then specialised in the production of goods sold to government departments (and directly to prisons, for example guards' uniforms), or in small low-skilled manual labour (mainly subcontracting to small local industries).[23]

Forced labour was widely used in the African colonies. One of the most emblematic projects, the construction of the Congo-Ocean railway (140 km or 87 miles) cost the lives of 17,000 indigenous workers in 1929. In Cameroon, the 6,000 workers on the Douala-Yaoundé railway line had a mortality rate of 61.7% according to a report by the authorities. Forced labour was officially abolished in the colonies in 1946 under pressure from the Rassemblement démocratique africain and the French Communist Party. In fact, it lasted well into the 1950s.[24]

### India[edit]

Main article: Prisons in India

Only convicts sentenced to "rigorous imprisonment" have to undertake work during their prison term. A 2011 Hindustan Times article reported that 99% of convicts that receive such sentences rarely undertake work because most prisons in India do not have sufficient demand for prison labour.[25] In the Indian Penal Code prior to 1949, Many sections prescribed penal servitude for life as a viable punishment. This was removed by Act No. XVII of 1949, Simply known as the Criminal Law (Removal of Racial Discriminations) Act, 1949 [26]

### Ireland[edit]

Penal servitude was abolished in Ireland by section 11(1) of the Criminal Law Act, 1997.[27]

Every enactment conferring a power on a court to pass a sentence of penal servitude in any case must be treated as an enactment empowering that court to pass a sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term of penal servitude for which a sentence could have been passed in that case immediately before the commencement of the Criminal Law Act 1997.

In the case of any enactment in force on 5 August 1891 (the date on which section 1 of the Penal Servitude Act 1891 came into force) whereby a court had, immediately before the commencement of the Criminal Law Act 1997, power to pass a sentence of penal servitude, the maximum term of imprisonment may not exceed five years or any greater term authorised by the enactment.

Imprisonment with hard labour was abolished by section 11(3) of that Act.

### Japan[edit]

Main article: Penal system of Japan

Most Japanese prisoners are required to engage in prison labour, often in manufacturing parts which are then sold cheaply to private Japanese companies. This practice has raised charges of unfair competition since the prisoners' wages are far below market rate.

During the early Meiji era, in Hokkaido many prisoners were forced to engage in road construction (Shūjin dōro (囚人道路)), mining,[28] and railroad construction, which were severe. It was thought to be a form of unfree labour. It was replaced by indentured servitude (Takobeya-rōdō (タコ部屋労働)).[29]

### Netherlands[edit]

(Hard) penal labour does not exist in the Netherlands, but a light variant consisting of community service (Dutch: taakstraf)[30] is one of the primary punishments[31][which?] which can be imposed on a convicted offender.[32] The maximum punishment is 240 hours, according to article 22c, part 2 of Wetboek van Strafrecht.[33] The labour must be done in their free time. Reclassering Nederland keeps track of those who were sentenced to community services.[34][35]

### New Zealand[edit]

The Criminal Justice Act 1954 abolished the distinction between imprisonment with and without hard labour and replaced 'reformative detention' with 'corrective training',[36] which was later abolished on 30 June 2002.[37]

### North Korea[edit]

Main article: Prisons in North Korea

North Korean prison camps can be differentiated into internment camps for political prisoners (Kwan-li-so in Korean) and reeducation camps (Kyo-hwa-so in Korean).[38] According to human rights organisations, the prisoners face forced hard labour in all North Korean prison camps.[39][40] The conditions are harsh and life-threatening[41] and prisoners are subject to torture and inhumane treatment.[42][43]

### Soviet Union[edit]

Main articles: Gulag, Population transfer in the Soviet Union, and Katorga labor (Soviet Union)

Another historically significant example of forced labour was that of political prisoners and other persecuted people in labour camps, especially in totalitarian regimes since the 20th century where millions of convicts were exploited and often killed by hard labour and bad living conditions.[44] For much of the history of the Soviet Union and other Communist states, political opponents of these governments were often sentenced to forced labour camps. These forced labour camps are called Gulags, an acronym for the government organisation that was in charge of them.[45] The Soviet Gulag camps were a continuation of the punitive labour system of Imperial Russia known as katorga, but on a larger scale. The kulaks were some of the first victims of the Soviet Union's forced labour system. Starting in 1930, nearly two million kulaks were taken to camps in unpopulated regions of the Soviet Union and forced to work in very harsh conditions.[46] Most inmates in the Gulag were ordinary criminals: between 1934 and 1953 there were only two years, 1946 and 1947, when the number of counter-revolutionary prisoners exceeded that of ordinary criminals, partly because the Soviet state had amnestied 1 million ordinary criminals as part of the victory celebrations in 1945.[47]: 343 At the height of the purges in the 1930s political prisoners made up 12% of the camp population; at the time of Joseph Stalin's death just over one-quarter. In the 1930s, many ordinary criminals were guilty of crimes that would have been punished with a fine or community service in the 1920s. They were victims of harsher laws from the early 1930s, driven, in part, by the need for more prison camp labour.[48]: 930

The Gulags constituted a large portion of the Soviet Union's overall economy. Over half of the tin produced in the Soviet Union was produced by the Gulags. In 1951, the Gulags extracted over four times as much gold as the rest of the economy. Gulag camps also produced all of the diamonds and platinum in the Soviet Union, and forced labourers in the Gulags constituted approximately one fifth of all construction labourers in the Soviet Union.[49]

Between 1930 and 1960, the Soviet regime created many labour camps in Siberia and Central Asia.[50][51] There were at least 476 separate camp complexes, each one comprising hundreds, even thousands of individual camps.[52] It is estimated that there may have been 5–7 million people in these camps at any one time. In later years the camps also held victims of Joseph Stalin's purges as well as World War II prisoners. It is possible that approximately 10% of prisoners died each year.[53] Out of the 91,000 German soldiers captured after the Battle of Stalingrad, only 6,000 survived the Gulag and returned home.[54] Many of these prisoners, however, had died of illness contracted during the siege of Stalingrad and in the forced march into captivity.[55] More than half of all deaths occurred in 1941–1944, mostly as a result of the deteriorating food and medicine supplies caused by wartime shortages.[56]: 927

Probably the worst of the camp complexes were the three built north of the Arctic Circle at Kolyma, Norilsk and Vorkuta.[57][58] Prisoners in Soviet labour camps were sometimes worked to death with a mix of extreme production quotas, brutality, hunger and the harsh elements.[59] In all, more than 18 million people passed through the Gulag,[60] with further millions being deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union.[61] The fatality rate was as high as 80% during the first months in many camps. Immediately after the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, the NKVD massacred about 100,000 prisoners who awaited deportation either to NKVD prisons in Moscow or to the Gulag.

### Taiwan[edit]

Inmates in Taiwan are required to work during their stay in prison but receive a wage for their labour.[62]

### United States[edit]

Main article: Penal labor in the United States

Federal Prison Industries (FPI; doing business as UNICOR since 1977) is a wholly owned United States government corporation created in 1934 that uses penal labour from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to produce goods and services. FPI is restricted to selling its products and services, which include clothing, furniture, electrical components and vehicle parts, to federal government agencies and has no access to the commercial market so as not to compete against private employment.[63] State prison systems also use penal labour and have their own penal labour divisions.

The 13th Amendment of the US Constitution, enacted in 1865, explicitly allows penal labour as it states that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction".[64][65][66] Unconvicted detainees awaiting trial cannot be forced to participate in forced rehabilitative labour programs in prison as it violates the Thirteenth Amendment.

Convicts leased to harvest timber in Florida, circa 1915

The "convict lease" system became popular throughout the South following the American Civil War and continued into the 20th century. During Jim Crow former slaves were often arrested and worked in much the same way as before the war. Since the impoverished state governments could not afford penitentiaries, they leased out prisoners to work at private firms. Reformers abolished convict leasing in the 20th-century Progressive Era. At the same time, labour has been required at many prisons.

In 1934, federal prison officials concerned about growing unrest in prisons lobbied to create a work program. Private companies got involved again in 1979, when Congress passed a law establishing the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program which allows employment opportunities for prisoners in some circumstances.[67]

Penal labour is sometimes used as a punishment in the US military.[68]

Over the years, the courts have held that inmates may be required to work and are not protected by the constitutional prohibition against involuntary servitude.[69] Correctional standards promulgated by the American Correctional Association provide that sentenced inmates, who are generally housed in maximum, medium, or minimum security prisons, be required to work and be paid for that work.[70] Some states require, as with Arizona, all able-bodied inmates to work.[71]

From 2010 to 2015[72] and again in 2016[73] and 2018,[74] some prisoners in the US refused to work, protesting for better pay, better conditions and for the end of forced labour. Strike leaders have been punished with indefinite solitary confinement.[75][76] Forced prison labour occurs in both public and private prisons. The prison labour industry makes over $1 billion per year selling products that inmates make, while inmates are paid very little or nothing in return.[77] In California, 2,500 incarcerated workers fight wildfires for $1 an hour through the CDCR's Conservation Camp Program; the voluntary participation of prisoners in this work saves the state as much as $100 million a year.[78]

The prison strikes of 2018, sponsored by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak and the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, are considered the largest in the country's history. In particular, inmates objected to being excluded from the 13th Amendment which forces them to work for pennies a day, a condition they assert is tantamount to "modern-day slavery".[79][80][81]

Prison industries today are often operating at a loss, with much of the labour undertaken by prisoners actually constituting "prison housework" rather than productive activity.[82]

## Non-punitive prison labour[edit]

Inmates sewing in a Brazilian prison

In a number of penal systems, inmates have the possibility of getting jobs. This may serve several purposes. One goal is to give an inmate a meaningful way to occupy their prison time and a possibility of earning some money. It may also play an important role in resocialisation as inmates may acquire skills that would help them to find a job after release. It may also have an important penological function: reducing the monotony of prison life for the inmate, keeping inmates busy on productive activities, rather than, for example, potentially violent or antisocial activities, and helping to increase inmate fitness, and thus decrease health problems, rather than letting inmates succumb to a sedentary lifestyle.[83]

The classic occupation in 20th-century British prisons was sewing mailbags. This has diversified into areas such as engineering, furniture making, desktop publishing, repairing wheelchairs and producing traffic signs, but such opportunities are not widely available, and many prisoners who work perform routine prison maintenance tasks (such as in the prison kitchen) or obsolete unskilled assembly work (such as in the prison laundry) that is argued to be no preparation for work after release.[84] Classic 20th-century American prisoner work involved making license plates; the task is still being performed by inmates in certain areas.[85]

> Many businesses, large and small, already make use of prison workshops to produce high quality goods and services and do so profitably. They are not only investing in prisons but in the future of their companies and the country as a whole. I urge others to follow their lead and seize the opportunity that working prisons offer.

—David Cameron, UK Prime Minister[86]

A significant amount of controversy has arisen with regard to the use of prison labour if the prison in question is privatised. Many of these privatised prisons exist in the Southern United States, where roughly 7% of the prison population are within privately owned institutions.[87] Goods produced through this penal labour are regulated through the Ashurst-Sumners Act which criminalises the interstate transport of such goods.

The advent of automated production in the 20th and 21st century has reduced the availability of unskilled physical work for inmates.

ONE3ONE Solutions, formerly the Prison Industries Unit in Britain, has proposed the development of in-house prison call centres.[88]

## See also[edit]

* Slavery in the 21st century
* Ashurst-Sumners Act
* Chain gang
* Community service
* Convict lease
* Coproduction of public services by service users and communities
* Galley slave
* Trusty system
* UNICOR

## References[edit]

1. ^ Secretariat, United Nations. (1962). "Yearbook on Human Rights". Civil Rights: 102.
2. ^ Parliament, Great Britain. House of Commons (1855), Parliamentary Papers, vol. 25, H.M. Stationery Office, 1855, p. 52
3. ^ a b c d e "Inveraray Jail and County Court, Life in Jail". Archived from the original on 12 February 2015.
4. ^ "Public Act, 16 George III, c. 43". The National Archives. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
5. ^ Emsley, Clive; Hitchcock, Tim; Shoemaker, Robert (March 2015). "Crime and Justice – Punishments at the Old Bailey". www.oldbaileyonline.org. Old Bailey Proceedings Online. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
6. ^ long titled "An Act to substitute, in certain Cases, other Punishment in lieu of Transportation",Short Titles Act 1853
7. ^ Section 2 of the Penal Servitude Act 1857
8. ^ Section 1 of the Penal Servitude Act 1891
9. ^ Thompson, Irene. The A-Z of Punishment and Torture. BeWrite Books. p. 134\. ISBN 978-1-906609-43-6.
10. ^ Reynolds, Morgan O. (1994). "Using the Private Sector to Deter Crime". Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies. 19 (2). National Center for Policy Analysis: 33.
11. ^ Section 45 of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998
12. ^ section 1(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1948
13. ^ section 1(1) of the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1953
14. ^ Mühlhahn, Klaus (2009). Criminal Justice in China: A History. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press ISBN 978-0-674-03323-8. pp. 132–133.
15. ^ "CNN In-Depth Specials – Visions of China – Red Giant: Labor camps reinforce China's totalitarian rule". Cnn.com. 9 October 1984. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
16. ^ "Al Jazeera slavery debate in full". YouTube. 25 November 2011. Archived from the original on 14 November 2021. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
17. ^ Lipes, Joshua (12 November 2019). "Expert Estimates China Has More Than 1,000 Internment Camps For Xinjiang Uyghurs". Radio Free Asia. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
18. ^ "Beijing Prisons First to Pay Prisoners". www.china.org.cn. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
19. ^ Wu, Huizhong (24 December 2019). "Factbox: China's use of prison labor". Reuters. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
20. ^ Guilbaud, Fabrice. "Working in Prison: Time as Experienced by Inmate-Workers", Revue française de sociologie, vol. vol. 51, no. 5, 2010, pp. 41–68. [1]
21. ^ Alouti, Feriel (31 December 2014). "Prison labour: a vehicle for reintegration or exploitation?". Equal Times. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
22. ^ Patricia O'Brien, The Promise of Punishment: Prisons in Nineteenth-century France, Princeton University Press, 1982
23. ^ Guilbaud, Fabrice. "To Challenge and Suffer: The Forms and Foundations of Working Inmates' Social Criticism", Sociétés contemporaines 3/2012 (No 87)[2]
24. ^ "le travail forcé colonial dans l'empire français doit être reconnu comme un crime contre l'humanité" [Colonial forced labor in the French empire must be recognized as a crime against humanity]. Le Monde.fr (in French). 10 April 2019.
25. ^ "How rigorous is rigorous imprisonment?". Hindustan Times. 24 July 2011. Retrieved 4 May 2019.
26. ^ Government, (India) (1949). "Criminal Law (Removal of Racial Discriminations) Act, 1949" (PDF).
27. ^ The Criminal Law Act 1997, section 11(1)
28. ^ OBA, Yoshirō (25 September 2012). "On Business History of Hokkaido Coal Mining and Shipping Corporation". 北海学園大学学園論集. 153. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
29. ^ Hippoh, Yasuyuki (1971). "Building Industrial Relations System in Hokkaido (1872-1940)". 北海道大學 經濟學研究. 21 (2). Retrieved 9 October 2020.
30. ^ Newman, Graeme R. (19 October 2010). Crime and Punishment around the World [4 volumes]: [Four Volumes]. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-313-35134-1.
31. ^ Ministerie van Algemene Zaken (11 June 2012). "Straffen en maatregelen voor volwassenen - Straffen en maatregelen - Rijksoverheid.nl" [Punishments and measures for adults]. www.rijksoverheid.nl (in Dutch). Retrieved 18 November 2022.
32. ^ "wetten.nl – Wet- en regelgeving – Wetboek van Strafrecht – BWBR0001854" (in Dutch). Wetten.overheid.nl. 27 December 2012. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
33. ^ "wetten.nl – Wet- en regelgeving – Wetboek van Strafrecht – BWBR0001854" (in Dutch). Wetten.overheid.nl. 27 December 2012. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
34. ^ "Home :: Reclassering Nederland". Reclassering.nl. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
35. ^ "Werkstraf – Reclassering Nederland". YouTube. 31 August 2012. Archived from the original on 14 November 2021. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
36. ^ SYMON, TONI (2012). "Paparua men's prison: a social and political history" (PDF). Department of Sociology. University of Canterbury, Christchurch.
37. ^ "4 Custodial sentences and remands – Ministry of Justice, New Zealand". www.justice.govt.nz. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
38. ^ "The Hidden Gulag – Part Two: Kwan-li-so political panel-labor colonies (page 25 – 82), Part Three: Kyo-hwa-so long-term prison-labor facilities (page 82 – 110)" (PDF). The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. Retrieved 11 November 2010.
39. ^ "Political Prison Camps in North Korea Today" (PDF), Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, pp. 406–428, 15 July 2011, archived from the original (PDF) on 28 February 2013, retrieved 7 February 2014 Chapter 4 Current Status of Compulsory Labor
40. ^ "North Korea: Political Prison Camps". Amnesty International. 4 May 2011. Retrieved 24 November 2011.
41. ^ "2009 Human Rights Report: Democratic People's Republic of Korea". U.S. Department of State. Archived from the original on 24 March 2010. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
42. ^ Nicholas D. Kristof (14 July 1996). "Survivors Report Torture in North Korea Labor Camps". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
43. ^ "North Korea: Torture, death penalty and abductions". Amnesty International. 2 August 2009. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
44. ^ Getty, J.; Rittersporn, T.; Zemskov, V. (1993). "Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence". The American Historical Review. 98 (4): 1017–1049. doi:10.2307/2166597. JSTOR 2166597.
45. ^ Applebaum, Anne (2004). Gulag : a history (First Anchor books ed.). New York: Anchor Books. p. 19\. ISBN 1-4000-3409-4. OCLC 55203139.
46. ^ Applebaum, Anne (2004). Gulag : a history (First Anchor books ed.). New York: Anchor Books. p. 98\. ISBN 1-4000-3409-4. OCLC 55203139.
47. ^ Roberts, Geoffrey (2008). Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300150407.
48. ^ Overy, Richard (2004). The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. ISBN 9780141912240.
49. ^ Gregory, Paul R.; Lazarev, Valery, eds. (2003). The Economics of Forced Labor : The Soviet Gulag. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. p. 8\. ISBN 978-0-8179-3943-4. OCLC 843883154. OL 9650930M.
50. ^ "Gulag: Understanding the Magnitude of What Happened". Archived from the original on 2 March 2010. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
51. ^ "Politics, economics and time bury memories of the Kazakh gulag". International Herald Tribune, 1 January 2007
52. ^ Anne Applebaum. "Inside the Gulag". "Anne Applebaum -- Inside the Gulag". Archived from the original on 15 October 2008. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
53. ^ "The National Archives | Heroes & Villains | Stalin & industrialisation | Background". Learningcurve.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 7 September 2008. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
54. ^ "German POWs in Allied Hands". The World War II Multimedia Database. 26 July 2011. Archived from the original on 12 April 2012. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
55. ^ Antony Beevor, Stalingrad
56. ^ Overy, Richard (2004). The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia. W. W. Norton Company, Inc. ISBN 9780141912240.
57. ^ Applebaum, Anne. "Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps". Arlindo-Correia. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
58. ^ "Gulag – Infoplease". www.infoplease.com.
59. ^ "The Gulag Collection: Paintings of the Soviet Penal System By Former Prisoner Nikolai Getman". Archived 22 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine
60. ^ Merritt, Steven (11 May 2003). "The Other Killing Machine". New York Times. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
61. ^ Parfitt, Tom (1 March 2003). "Stalin's forgotten victims stuck in the gulag". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 20 April 2008. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
62. ^ "Prison Act". law.moj.gov.tw. Ministry of Justice. 15 January 2020.
63. ^ McCollum, William (1996). Federal Prison Industries, Inc: Hearing Before the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives. DIANE Publishing. p. 1\. ISBN 978-0-7567-0060-7.
64. ^ Tsesis, The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom (2004), pp. 17 & 34\. "It rendered all clauses directly dealing with slavery null and altered the meaning of other clauses that had originally been designed to protect the institution of slavery."
65. ^ "The Thirteenth Amendment", Primary Documents in American History, Library of Congress. Retrieved 15 February 2007
66. ^ Adamson, Christopher (1983). "Punishment after Slavery: Southern State Penal Systems, 1865–1890". Social Problems. 30 (5): 555–569. doi:10.2307/800272. JSTOR 800272.
67. ^ Walshe, Sadhbh (2012). "How US prison labour pads corporate profits at taxpayers' expense". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
68. ^ "'Malingerer' Gets 90 Days Hard Labor". Military.com. 2 September 2009. Archived from the original on 10 May 2012. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
69. ^ "Perspectives on Paying the Federal Minimum Wage" (PDF). Prisoner Labor: 4. 1993.
70. ^ "Perspectives on Paying the Federal Minimum Wage" (PDF). Prisoner Labor: 2. 1993.
71. ^ Constituent Services Informational Handbook (PDF). Corrections ADC. 2013. p. 16. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
72. ^ Hedges, Chris (22 June 2015). "America's Slave Empire". Truthdig. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
73. ^ "The Largest Prison Strike in U.S. History Enters its Second Week". 16 September 2016.
74. ^ Lopez, German (22 August 2018). "America's prisoners are going on strike in at least 17 states". Vox. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
75. ^ Pilkington, Ed (21 August 2018). "US inmates stage nationwide prison labor strike over 'modern slavery'". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
76. ^ Fryer, Brooke (5 September 2018). "US inmates sent to solitary confinement over 'prison slavery' strike". NITV News. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
77. ^ Marie Gottschalk. Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. Princeton University Press, 2014. pp. 59–61 ISBN 978-0691170831
78. ^ "A New Form of Slavery? Meet Incarcerated Firefighters Battling California's Wildfires for $1 an Hour". Democracy Now!. 12 September 2018. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
79. ^ Pilkington, Ed (23 August 2018). "Major prison strike spreads across US and Canada as inmates refuse food". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 9 February 2021. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
80. ^ Corley, Cheryl (21 August 2018). "U.S. Inmates Plan Nationwide Prison Strike To Protest Labor Conditions". NPR. Archived from the original on 4 February 2021. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
81. ^ Bozelko, Chandra; Lo, Ryan (25 August 2018). "As prison strikes heat up, former inmates talk about horrible state of labor and incarceration". USA Today. Archived from the original on 4 February 2021. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
82. ^ Gleissner, John Dewar (2013). "How to Create American Manufacturing Jobs". Tennessee Journal of Law & Policy. 9 (3): Article 4.
83. ^ Guilbaud, Fabrice (2010). "Working in Prison: Time as Experienced by Inmates-Workers". Revue Française de Sociologie. 51 (5): 41–68. doi:10.3917/rfs.515.0041. JSTOR 40731128.
84. ^ Simon, Frances (6 March 1999). "More to prison work than sewing mailbags". The Independent. London: Independent News and Media Ltd. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
85. ^ Brown, Andrea (5 March 2006). "Colorado inmates: Making license plates since 1926". The Gazette (Colorado Springs, CO). Archived from the original on 23 January 2013. Retrieved 7 December 2008.
86. ^ Cameron, David (24 May 2005). "A message from the PM". ONE3ONE Solutions. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
87. ^ Wood, Phillip J. (1 September 2007). "Globalization and Prison Privatization: Why Are Most of the World's For-Profit Adult Prisons to Be Found in the American South?". International Political Sociology. 1 (3): 222–239. doi:10.1111/j.1749-5687.2007.00015.x. ISSN 1749-5687.
88. ^ Malik, Shiv (9 August 2012). "Prison call centre plans revealed". Retrieved 10 August 2012.

## Further reading[edit]

* Douglas A. Blackmon. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to World War II (2008)
* Matthew J. Mancini. One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American South, 1866–1928 (1996)
* Alex Lichtenstein. Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South (1996)
* David M. Oshinsky. "Worse than Slavery": Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice (1996).
* Bloom, D. (2006). Employment Focused Programs for Ex-Prisoners: What Have We Learned, What Are We Learning, and Where Should We Go From Here? New York: National Poverty Center.

## External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Penal labor.

* McGarry v. Pallito 2nd Cir 2012[dead link]

* v
* t
* e

Unfree labour relationships and institutions

* Conscription
* Corvée
* Encomienda
* Haruwa–charuwa
* Labour camp
* Mit'a
* Penal labour
* Serfdom
* Slavery
* Truck wages

Authority control databases: National |

* Spain
* Israel
* United States

|

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template