The Rehabilitation Project Force, or RPF, is the Church of Scientology's program for members of its Sea Organization who have allegedly violated expectations or policies.

[2][3][4] Scholars, journalists, and former scientologists have characterized the RPF as a forced labor and re-indoctrination program comparable to the Soviet gulag system.

The Rehabilitation Project Force developed out of a predecessor group, the Mud Box Brigade, which was formed aboard L. Ron Hubbard's private fleet in the late 1960s.

[6]: 341 Hubbard defined the role as being essentially a punishment duty for unsatisfactory workers: "More candidates will be appointed regularly and promptly every time I find a freeloader who is loafing on post and drifting with the wind.

They must run (not walk) everywhere they go, are restricted to base, have no liberties, eat leftovers from the crew mess hall, do the dirtiest jobs, and receive only one quarter of regular pay.

[9]: 105–106 The RPF was originally intended to last no more than a couple of months, where the assignee would learn Scientology auditing, if he or she was not already an auditor, by the "read it, drill it, do it" method.

Former Sea Org members who've been through the program charge that it is a form of re-indoctrination, one stating the "twin", or auditing partner he was given was actually "responsible for making sure he didn't escape.

[16] In his book The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology, ex-Scientologist John Duignan describes RPF members living in a rat-infested basement, engaging in degrading jobs for years at a stretch, while denied visits with their spouses or children.

[13]: 89–90 Douglas E. Cowan and David G. Bromley state that various scholars and observers have come to radically different conclusions about the RPF and whether it is "voluntary or coercive, therapeutic or punitive".