Penal labour is a form of the 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 forms of work, 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 labor (the fruits going to the authorities and/or the prisoner) and intrinsicaly pointless tasks, serving merely as a primitive occupational therapy and/or physical torment, such as the treadmill (in Victorian prisons, the painstakingly produced energy not being put to any use; became proverbial for a pointless procedure) and shot drill (i.e. carrying canon balls around, that aren't needed anywhere; e.g. in Canadian military prisons)

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 convict labourers, many of whom had received harsh sentences for minor misdemeanours in Britain or Ireland. In sociology, social status is the standing, the honour or prestige attaching to ones position in society. ... Compassion (in Pali: Karuna) is a sense of shared suffering, most often combined with a desire to alleviate or reduce such suffering; to show special kindness to those who suffer. ... In politics and in history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a geographically-distant state (or city, in ancient times). ... 1788 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... 1868 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

• Sometimes authorities turn prison labour into an industry, as on a prison farm, where the pursuit of income (profit may be minor after expenses such as on security) from their productive labor may even overtake the preoccupation with punishment and/or reeducation as such of the prisoners, who are in risk of being exploited as slave-like cheap labor

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. ...

Labour camps

Another historically significant example of forced labour was that of political prisoners and other persecuted people in labour camps, especially during the 20th century. A political prisoner is anyone held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, because their ideas or image either challenge or pose a real or potential threat to 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 labor camps. A concentration camp is a large detention center created for political opponents, aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. ... 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. ... World map showing location of Europe When considered a continent, Europe is the worlds second-smallest continent in terms of area, with an area of 10,600,000 km² (4,140,625 square miles), making it larger than Australia only. ... World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atom bomb World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a mid-20th-century conflict that engulfed much of the... 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, enemies of these governments were often sentenced to forced labour camps. The Soviet Gulag camps were the continuation of the punitive labour system of Imperial Russia known as katorga. A Communist state is a term for a state governed by a single political party which declares its allegiance to the principles of Marxism-Leninism. ... A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are engaged in forced labor. ... Gulag (Russian: ГУЛАГ   listen?) is an acronym for Главное Управление Исправительно— Трудовых Лагерей и колонии, Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lagerey i kolonii, The Chief Directorate [or Administration] of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies. Anne Applebaum, in her book Gulag: A History, explains: Literally, the word GULAG is an acronym, meaning Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei, or Main Camp Administration. ... Big Coat of Arms of the Russian Empire, adopted in 1882 Central element from the Coat of Arms of the Russian Empire Flag of Russian Empire Imperial Russia is the term used to cover the period of history from the expansion of Russia under Peter the Great, through the expansion... Katorga (ка́торга, from Greek: katergon (galley)) was a system of penal servitude in Imperial Russia. ...

Millions of people were exploited and killed by hard labor and bad living conditions in Nazi and Soviet labour camps.

Penal labour in China

See Laogai and Reeducation through labor for People's Republic of China 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 or 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 drug use for periods up to four years. ...

Non-punitive prison labour

In a number of penal systems the convicts have a possibility to have a job. This may serve several purposes. It gives a convict a meaningful occupation and a possibility to earn some money. It may also play an important role in resocialization: a convict may acquire skills that would help him to find a job after the release.