Penal labour or penal servitude is a form of unfree labour. The term may refer to two different notions: labour as a form of punishment and labour as a form of occupation of convicts. Unfree labour is a generic or collective term for those work relations, especially in modern or early modern history, in which adults and/or children are employed against their will by the threat of destitution, detention, violence (including death), or other extreme hardship to themselves, or to members of their...

Punitive labour

Purely by its nature one can distinguish productive labour (the fruits going to the authorities and/or the prisoner) and intrinsically pointless tasks, serving merely as a primitive occupational therapy and/or physical torment, such as the treadmill (in Victorian prisons, the inmates painstakingly produced energy not being put to any use, which became proverbial for a pointless procedure); and shot drill (i.e. carrying cannonballs around, that aren't needed anywhere; e.g. in Canadian military prisons) A woman on a treadmill. ...

Prison labour

Convict or prison labour is another classic form of unfree labour. Convicts subjected to forced labour have often been regarded with lack of sympathy, because of the social stigma attached to people regarded as "common criminals". In some countries and historical periods, however, prison labour has been forced upon people who have been: victims of prejudice, convicted of political crimes, convicted of "victimless crimes", or people who committed theft or related offences because they lacked any other means of subsistence — categories of people for whom compassion is typically called. The British penal colonies in Australia between 1788 and 1868 are probably the best examples 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. A social stigma is a stigma in the form of a distinctive characteristic in a person which can cause or be the result of marginalisation when used as an insult by individuals or groups. ... Ûæ:For the Doctor Who character, see Compassion (Doctor Who). ... A Penal Colony is a colony used to detain prisoners and generally use them for penal labor in an economically underdeveloped part of the states (usually colonial) territories, and on a far larger scale than the prison farm. ... 1788 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... 1868 (MDCCCLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Friday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ...

Sometimes authorities turn prison labour into an industry, as on a prison farm. In such cases, the pursuit of income from their productive labour may even overtake the preoccupation with punishment and/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). A Prison farm is a large correctional facility where hard labor convicts are put to productive use, usually for manual labor, largely in open air, such as in agriculture, logging, quarrying etcetera. ...

The British Penal Servitude Act of 1853 substituted penal servitude for transportation. 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; and 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. The modern concept of Small Office and Home Office or SoHo , or Small or Home Office deals with the category of business which can be from 1 to 10 workers. ... Recidivism is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have either experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been treated or trained to extinguish that behavior. ...

Labour camps

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. A political prisoner may be someone held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, because their ideas or image are deemed by a government to either challenge or threaten the authority of the state. ... A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are engaged in forced labor. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the...

The best-known example of this is the concentration camp system run by Nazi Germany in Europe during World War II. Nazi camps served for variety of purposes, most notorious being extermination camps and labour camps. It has been suggested that Internment be merged into this article or section. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... Europe is conventionally considered one of the seven continents of Earth which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiographic one, leading to various perspectives about Europes borders. ... Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II... Majdanek - crematorium Extermination camp (German Vernichtungslager) was the term applied to a group of death camps set up by Nazi Germany during World War II for the express purpose of killing the Jews of Europe, although members of some other groups whom the Nazis wished to exterminate, such as Roma...

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. The Soviet Gulag camps were a continuation of the punitive labour system of Imperial Russia known as katorga, but on a larger scale - together with executions and forced migrations the Stalinist oppression may have made more victims then the Nazi occupation. This article is about one-party states governed by Communist parties. ... A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are engaged in forced labor. ... Gulag ( , Russian: ) is an acronym for Главное Управление Исправительно—Трудовых Лагерей и колоний, Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lagerey i kolonii, The Chief Directorate [or Administration] of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies of the NKVD. Anne Applebaum, in her book Gulag: A History, explains: Literally, the word GULAG is an acronym, meaning Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei, or Main Camp... Imperial Russia is the term used to cover the period of history from the expansion of Russia under Peter the Great, through the expansion of the Russian Empire from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, to the deposal of Nicholas II of Russia, the last tsar, at the start... Katorga (ка́торга, from Greek: katergon (galley)) was a system of penal servitude in Imperial Russia. ...

See Laogai and Reeducation through labour for the People's Republic of China's case. Laogai (勞改; pinyin: láo găi), which means reform through labor, is a slogan of the Chinese criminal justice system and has been used to refer to the use of prison labor in the Peoples Republic of China. ... Reeducation through labor (laodong jiaoyang 劳动教养, abbreviated láojiào 劳教) is a system of administrative detentions in the Peoples Republic of China which is generally used to detain persons for minor crimes such as petty theft, prostitution, and illegal drug use for periods up to four years. ...

Non-punitive prison labour

In a number of penal systems the convicts have the possibility of a job. This may serve several purposes. Some say it gives a convict a meaningful occupation and a possibility of earning some money. It may also play an important role in resocialization: convicts may acquire skills that would help them to find a job after release. Others argue that it is an opportunity for corporations to generate large profits from a captive population.

See also

• Galley
• Katorga