Penal labour
[3] Semi-punitive labour also included oakum-picking: teasing apart old tarry rope to make caulking material for sailing vessels.
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.
[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.
While the purpose was mainly punitive, the mills could have been used to grind grain, pump water, or operate a ventilation system.
As late as 1885, 75% of all prison inmates were involved in some sort of productive endeavour, mostly in private contract and leasing systems.
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 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were arrested and re-educated in the spirit of anti-communism at the Northwestern Youth Labor Camp.
[16][17][18][19] Xinjiang internment camps represent a source of penal labour in China according to Adrien Zenz.
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.
Forced labour was officially abolished in the colonies in 1946 under pressure from the Rassemblement démocratique africain and the French Communist Party.
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.
[31] (Hard) penal labour does not exist in the Netherlands, but a light variant consisting of community service (Dutch: taakstraf)[32] is one of the primary punishments[33][which?]
[46] 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.
[47] The Soviet Gulag camps were a continuation of the punitive labour system of Imperial Russia known as katorga, but on a larger scale.
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.
[49]: 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 later years the camps also held victims of Joseph Stalin's purges as well as World War II prisoners.
[57] 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.
[58]: 927 Probably the worst of the camp complexes were the three built north of the Arctic Circle at Kolyma, Norilsk and Vorkuta.
[59][60] Prisoners in Soviet labour camps were sometimes worked to death with a mix of extreme production quotas, brutality, hunger and the harsh elements.
Since impoverished state governments could not afford penitentiaries, they leased out prisoners to work at private firms.
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.
[78] 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.
[79] 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".
It may also play an important role in resocialisation as inmates may acquire skills that would help them to find a job after release.
[87] Classic 20th-century American prisoner work involved making license plates; the task is still being performed by inmates in certain areas.
[88] Many businesses, large and small, already make use of prison workshops to produce high quality goods and services and do so profitably.
The advent of automated production in the 20th and 21st century has reduced the availability of unskilled physical work for inmates.
