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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 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) Prison labour convict labourers, many of whom had received harsh sentences for minor misdemeanours in Britain or Ireland . 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). 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. Labour camps Another historically significant example of forced labour was that of Political Prisoner s 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. 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 Camp s and labour camps. For much of the history of the Soviet Union and other Communist State s, political opponents of these governments were often sentenced to forced Labour Camp s. 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. ''See Laogai and Reeducation Through Labour for the People's Republic Of China 's case.'' 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 |
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