Female factories were based on British bridewells , prisons and workhouses . They were for women convicts transported to the penal colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land .
64-399: An estimated 9,000 convict women were in the 13 female factories, in the colonies of NSW and Van Diemen's Land. This spanned a period of 52 years -1804 to 1856. An estimated 1 in 5 to 1 in 7 Australians are related to these women . The factories were called factories because each was a site of production. The women produced spun wool and flax in all the factories. In the main factories other work
128-463: A crank by hand which in turn forced four large cups or ladles through sand inside a drum, doing nothing useful. Male prisoners had to turn the handle 6,000–14,400 times over the period of six hours a day (1.5–3.6 seconds per turn), as registered on a dial. The warder could make the task harder by tightening an adjusting screw. The British penal colonies in Australia between 1788 and 1868 provide
192-491: A distant British colony, except in cases where a person could be sentenced to transportation for life or for a term not less than fourteen years. Section 2 of the Penal Servitude Act 1857 (20 & 21 Vict. c. 3) abolished the sentence of transportation in all cases and provided that in all cases a person who would otherwise have been liable to transportation would be liable to penal servitude instead. Section 1 of
256-744: A goal of Labour, and the Attlee government was felt capable of bringing those reforms into effect. Peers in the House of Lords, who considered being tried by the House to be a bothersome duty rather than a privilege, added a provision abolishing peer trials by peers, which was accepted by both houses. From at least the 17th century, the Kingdom of England and its successor states maintained the penalty of transportation to English colonies for felons. Originally these colonies were in North America, and after
320-627: A major historical example 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 . As late as 1885, 75% of all prison inmates were involved in some sort of productive endeavour, mostly in private contract and leasing systems. By 1935, the portion of prisoners working had fallen to 44%, and almost 90% of those worked in state-run programmes rather than for private contractors. According to section 45(1) of
384-472: A means to secure labour, and labour as providing occupation for convicts. These scenarios can be applied to those imprisoned for political, religious, war, or other reasons as well as to criminal convicts. Large-scale implementations of penal labour include labour camps , prison farms , penal colonies , penal military units , penal transportation , or aboard prison ships . Punitive labour , also known as convict labour, prison labour, or hard labour ,
448-573: A mix of extreme production quotas , brutality , hunger and the harsh elements. In all, more than 18 million people passed through the Gulag , with further millions being deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union. The fatality rate was as high as 80% during the first months in many camps. Immediately after the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II ,
512-425: A prison workshop. In such cases, the pursuit of income from their productive labour may even overtake the preoccupation with punishment 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). This is sometimes not the case, and the income goes to defray the costs of the prison. Victorian inmates commonly worked
576-547: A private company, in the framework of a prison/company agreement for leasing inmate labour. Work ceased being compulsory for sentenced inmates in France in 1987. From the French Revolution of 1789 , the prison system has been governed by a new penal code. Some prisons became quasi-factories, in the nineteenth century, many discussions focused on the issue of competition between free labour and prison labour. Prison work
640-697: A punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction". Unconvicted detainees awaiting trial cannot be forced to participate in forced rehabilitative labour programs in prison as it violates the Thirteenth Amendment. The " convict lease " system became popular throughout the South following the American Civil War and continued into
704-517: A sentence could have been passed in that case immediately before the commencement of that Act. Imprisonment with hard labour was abolished by section 1(2) of that Act. Penal servitude was abolished for Northern Ireland by section 1(1) of the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1953 . Every enactment which operated to empower a court to pass a sentence of penal servitude in any case now operates so as to empower that court to pass
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#1732794184498768-551: A sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term of penal servitude for which a sentence could have been passed in that case immediately before the commencement of that Act. Imprisonment with hard labour was abolished by section 1(2) of that Act. Penal servitude was abolished in Scotland by section 16(1) of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1949 on 12 June 1950, and imprisonment with hard labour
832-434: A sentence of penal servitude, the maximum term of imprisonment may not exceed five years or any greater term authorised by the enactment. Imprisonment with hard labour was abolished by section 11(3) of that Act. Most Japanese prisoners are required to engage in prison labour, often in manufacturing parts which are then sold cheaply to private Japanese companies. This practice has raised charges of unfair competition since
896-681: A standard feature. 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 . Labour
960-482: A term not exceeding the maximum term of penal servitude for which a sentence could have been passed in that case immediately before the commencement of the Criminal Law Act 1997. 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
1024-535: A trial by jury. Technically speaking, the House of Lords tried such trials only when Parliament was in session, and the Court of the Lord High Steward tried them at other times. This latter court comprised those lords, known as "Lords Triers", whom the monarch empowered for the purpose. Monarchs could and did empower peers favourable to their desired verdict to the Court, but this ended when Parliament passed
1088-604: A viable punishment. This was removed by Act No. XVII of 1949, known as the Criminal Law (Removal of Racial Discriminations) Act, 1949 Penal servitude was abolished in Ireland by section 11(1) of the Criminal Law Act, 1997 . Every enactment conferring a power on a court to pass a sentence of penal servitude in any case must be treated as an enactment empowering that court to pass a sentence of imprisonment for
1152-408: Is a form of forced labour used in both the past and the present as an additional form of punishment beyond imprisonment alone. Punitive labour encompasses two types: productive labour, such as industrial work; and intrinsically pointless tasks used as primitive occupational therapy , punishment, or physical torment. Sometimes authorities turn prison labour into an industry, as on a prison farm or in
1216-421: Is a term for various kinds of forced labour that prisoners are required to perform, typically manual labour . The work may be light or hard, depending on the context. Forms of sentence involving penal labour have included involuntary servitude , penal servitude , and imprisonment with hard labour . The term may refer to several related scenarios: labour as a form of punishment, the prison system used as
1280-567: Is estimated that there may have been 5–7 million people in these camps at any one time. In later years the camps also held victims of Joseph Stalin's purges as well as World War II prisoners . It is possible that approximately 10% of prisoners died each year. Out of the 91,000 German soldiers captured after the Battle of Stalingrad , only 6,000 survived the Gulag and returned home. Many of these prisoners, however, had died of illness contracted during
1344-529: The Auburn Prison System 's main architects Elam Lynds, stating: ...Lynds aimed for profit. To him, a prisoner was like a slave, a machine, or a river: a resource to be exploited. Therefore the extraction of prisoners' labor, like that of slaves, should be limited by only the capacity of their human bodies. He believed that incarcerated men had no inherent right to benefit from their labor -vocationally, morally, or otherwise. Lynds's ideal prisoner
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#17327941844981408-848: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were arrested and re-educated in the spirit of anti-communism at the Northwestern Youth Labor Camp . After the CCP took power in 1949 and established the People's Republic of China , laojiao ( Re-education through labour ) and laogai ( Reform through labour ) was (and still is in some cases) used as a way to punish political prisoners . They were intended not only for criminals, but also for those deemed to be counter-revolutionary (political and/or religious prisoners). Often these prisoners are used to produce products for export to
1472-508: The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to produce goods and services. 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. State prison systems also use penal labour and have their own penal labour divisions. This has changed over time since
1536-560: The NKVD massacred about 100,000 prisoners who awaited deportation either to NKVD prisons in Moscow or to the Gulag. Inmates in Taiwan are required to work during their stay in prison but receive a wage for their labour. Federal Prison Industries (FPI; doing business as UNICOR since 1977) is a wholly owned United States government corporation created in 1934 that uses penal labour from
1600-518: The National Minimum Wage Act 1998 , prisoners are excluded from the national minimum wage. Penal servitude was abolished for England and Wales by section 1(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1948 . Every enactment conferring power on a court to pass a sentence of penal servitude in any case must be construed as conferring power to pass a sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term of penal servitude for which
1664-461: The Treason Act 1695 requiring that all peers be summoned to the Court, rendering the two courts virtually indistinguishable. In practice, this trial was far more a detriment than a privilege for accused peers. Whereas a commoner could challenge certain individuals from being empanelled in his or her jury, peers had no such right since all lords were involved in the deliberations and verdict of
1728-468: The penal treadmill . By the mid-1930s, most servitude was of the latter type, being in public prisons. Both corporal punishment and capital punishment had long been staples in British criminal law; death was the mandatory sentence for many offences since time immemorial, as was whipping. Mediaeval courts were limited in their scope; lords generally held their own courts, which had jurisdiction over
1792-403: The treadmill , shot drill, and the crank machine . 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. Prisoners had to work six or more hours a day, climbing the equivalent of 5,000 to 14,000 vertical feet. While the purpose was mainly punitive,
1856-401: The treadmill . In some cases, it was productive labour to grind grain (an example of using convict labour to meet costs); in others, it served no purpose. Similar punishments included turning the crank machine or carrying cannonballs. Semi-punitive labour also included oakum -picking: teasing apart old tarry rope to make caulking material for sailing vessels. Imprisonment with hard labour
1920-608: The 1820s to increase the prison's profits and support the prison financially. As historian Robin Bernstein demonstrates, this system of for-profit prison labor expanded to other state prisons throughout the United States within the next fifteen years, well before the convict-leasing system of the post-Civil War era. The 13th Amendment of the US Constitution , enacted in 1865, explicitly allows penal labour as it states that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as
1984-523: The 1950s. Only convicts sentenced to "rigorous imprisonment" have to undertake work during their prison term. A 2011 Hindustan Times article reported that 99% of convicts that receive such sentences rarely undertake work because most prisons in India do not have sufficient demand for prison labour. In the Indian Penal Code prior to 1949, Many sections prescribed penal servitude for life as
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2048-510: The 20th century. Yet, as historian Robin Bernstein demonstrates, the convict leasing system and the use of prison labor for profit began well before the Civil War in Auburn, New York . During this early period of convict leasing, prisoners at Auburn Prison were not paid for their labor. Bernstein explains the reasoning behind this refusal to pay wages to prison laborers in her analysis of one of
2112-687: The Congo-Ocean railway (140 km or 87 miles) cost the lives of 17,000 indigenous workers in 1929. In Cameroon, the 6,000 workers on the Douala-Yaoundé railway line had a mortality rate of 61.7% according to a report by the authorities. Forced labour was officially abolished in the colonies in 1946 under pressure from the Rassemblement démocratique africain and the French Communist Party . In fact, it lasted well into
2176-531: The English criminal justice system, mainly abolishing penal servitude , corporal punishment , and the right of peers to be tried for treason and felony in the House of Lords . The act also dealt with more minor aspects of criminal law, such as the procedure regarding bail. Early versions of the bill attempted to abolish the death penalty, but this would not occur until 1965. Reforming the criminal justice system by removing penal servitude and whipping had long been
2240-465: The Gulag were ordinary criminals: between 1934 and 1953 there were only two years, 1946 and 1947, when the number of counter-revolutionary prisoners exceeded that of ordinary criminals, partly because the Soviet state had amnestied 1 million ordinary criminals as part of the victory celebrations in 1945. At the height of the purges in the 1930s political prisoners made up 12% of the camp population; at
2304-733: The High Court, to pass a sentence of imprisonment for a term exceeding three years. See section 221 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975 and section 307(4) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 . 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
2368-523: The House voted, to abolish the privilege, but the government did not give time for the motion to be considered by the Commons before the session ended. A similar vote was passed in the Lords in 1937 but likewise died in the Commons. The act is "one of the most important measures relating to the reform of the criminal law and its administration". Other substantive provisions still in force are: Except for
2432-511: The Netherlands, but a light variant consisting of community service (Dutch: taakstraf ) is one of the primary punishments which can be imposed on a convicted offender. The maximum punishment is 240 hours, according to article 22c, part 2 of Wetboek van Strafrecht . The labour must be done in their free time. Reclassering Nederland keeps track of those who were sentenced to community services. The Criminal Justice Act 1954 abolished
2496-550: The Penal Servitude Act 1891 makes provision for enactments which authorise a sentence of penal servitude but do not specify a maximum duration. It must now be read subject to section 1(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1948 . 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
2560-590: The West . Xinjiang internment camps represent a source of penal labour in China according to Adrien Zenz . Since 2002, some prisoners have been eligible to receive payment for their labour. Prison inmates can work either for the prison (directly, by performing tasks linked to prison operation, or for the Régie Industrielle des Établissements Pénitentiaires, which produces and sells merchandise) or for
2624-561: The beginning of for-profit prisons in the United States. One of the first for-profit prisons was Auburn Prison , located in Auburn, New York, along the Owasco River . The prison was constructed in 1816 and prison labor was used to produce common goods like combs, shoes, animal harnesses, carpets, buckets, and barrels. Goods were originally produced and made for use inside the prison only, but expanded to produce products for outside sale in
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2688-429: The court. Furthermore, whilst a commoner could appeal a decision to higher courts, the House of Lords was the highest court in the land so no appeal was possible for a convicted peer except for royal pardon. Nor were there any substantial benefits in terms of sentencing compared to a commoner convicted of the same offence; the privilege of a peer to be excused for the first offence he committed other than murder or treason
2752-685: The distinction between imprisonment with and without hard labour and replaced 'reformative detention' with 'corrective training', which was later abolished on 30 June 2002. North Korean prison camps can be differentiated into internment camps for political prisoners ( Kwan-li-so in Korean) and reeducation camps (Kyo-hwa-so in Korean). According to human rights organisations, the prisoners face forced hard labour in all North Korean prison camps. The conditions are harsh and life-threatening and prisoners are subject to torture and inhumane treatment. Another historically significant example of forced labour
2816-450: The government organisation that was in charge of them. The Soviet Gulag camps were a continuation of the punitive labour system of Imperial Russia known as katorga , but on a larger scale. The kulaks were some of the first victims of the Soviet Union's forced labour system. 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. Most inmates in
2880-578: The impoverished state governments could not afford penitentiaries, they leased out prisoners to work at private firms. Reformers abolished convict leasing in the 20th-century Progressive Era . At the same time, labour has been required at many prisons. Criminal Justice Act 1948 The Criminal Justice Act 1948 ( 11 & 12 Geo. 6 . c. 58) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . It implemented several widespread reforms of
2944-460: The lord's subjects. The king's main advisors, who would in time evolve into the peerage, were subjects directly to the King and so could only be tried by royal courts. Eager to limit royal authority wherever possible, mediaeval barons asserted for themselves the right to be tried only by fellow barons rather than the usual royal courts. A statutory authorisation of this right that would have granted peers
3008-423: The loss of most such colonies transportation moved to Australia. Non-felon settlers in Australia began to resent the transportation of felons to their lands, however, so the practice was abolished in 1852. In its stead arose a system of penal servitude ; while such servitude could be and sometimes was for a productive purpose, more often than not it was meaningless labour intended to be physically exhausting, such as
3072-426: The mid-1930s, the majority opinion of the Lords was that the privilege ought to be abolished; the holders of this view were generally holders of recently-created peerages who chafed at the burden imposed on them, whereas the minority who defended the practice were generally holders of older peerages who considered it a privilege of the House as a whole. In 1936, the former Lord Chancellor Viscount Sankey proposed, and
3136-400: The mills could have been used to grind grain, pump water, or operate a ventilation system. Shot drill involved stooping without bending the knees, lifting a heavy cannonball slowly to chest height, taking three steps to the right, replacing it on the ground, stepping back three paces, and repeating, moving cannonballs from one pile to another. The crank machine was a device which turned
3200-399: The option, but not requirement, to be tried by peers was passed in 1391 but quickly repealed under royal pressure. The 1391 repeal, combined with the practical inability of peers to secure the right to try peers for any and every offence, ended up forming a settlement that peers were required to be tried in the House of Lords for treason and felony, and could not waive such a trial in favour of
3264-468: The prisoners' wages are far below market rate. During the early Meiji era , in Hokkaido many prisoners were forced to engage in road construction ( Shūjin dōro ( 囚人道路 ) ), mining , and railroad construction , which were severe. It was thought to be a form of unfree labour . It was replaced by indentured servitude ( Takobeya-rōdō ( タコ部屋労働 ) ). (Hard) penal labour does not exist in
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#17327941844983328-573: 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. 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. Penal servitude included hard labour as
3392-477: The siege of Stalingrad and in the forced march into captivity. 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. Probably the worst of the camp complexes were the three built north of the Arctic Circle at Kolyma , Norilsk and Vorkuta . Prisoners in Soviet labour camps were sometimes worked to death with
3456-404: The time of Joseph Stalin 's death just over one-quarter. In the 1930s, many ordinary criminals were guilty of crimes that would have been punished with a fine or community service in the 1920s. They were victims of harsher laws from the early 1930s, driven, in part, by the need for more prison camp labour. The Gulags constituted a large portion of the Soviet Union's overall economy. Over half of
3520-740: The tin produced in the Soviet Union was produced by the Gulags. In 1951, the Gulags extracted over four times as much gold as the rest of the economy. Gulag camps also produced all of the diamonds and platinum in the Soviet Union, and forced labourers in the Gulags constituted approximately one fifth of all construction labourers in the Soviet Union. Between 1930 and 1960, the Soviet regime created many labour camps in Siberia and Central Asia . There were at least 476 separate camp complexes, each one comprising hundreds, even thousands of individual camps. It
3584-475: Was "reduced to a silent insulated human working machine." New York State's Auburn Prison was not the only prison to adopt such practices. From 1817-1844, seventeen states across the United States North, South, and West, as well as Washington, D.C. and parts of Canada adopted this system. During Jim Crow former slaves were often arrested and worked in much the same way as before the war. Since
3648-410: Was abolished by section 16(2) of the act. Every enactment conferring power on a court to pass a sentence of penal servitude in any case must be construed as conferring power to pass a sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term of penal servitude for which a sentence could have been passed in that case immediately before 12 June 1950. But this does not empower any court, other than
3712-493: Was abolished in 1841, and the vote of the Lords to determine the convicted's punishment was constrained by law. In addition, the actual proceedings of such trials were almost invariably controlled by the advice of royal justices, the same people who tried commoners; as early as the 18th century, the Lord High Steward asked a justice for advice on all but one of his motions and decisions. The persistence of these trials
3776-650: Was first introduced into English law with the Criminal Law Act 1776 ( 16 Geo. 3 . c. 43), also known as the " Hulks Act ", which authorised prisoners being put to work on improving the navigation of the River Thames in lieu of transportation to the North American colonies , which had become impossible due to the American War of Independence . The Penal Servitude Act 1853 (16 & 17 Vict. c. 99), substituted penal servitude for transportation to
3840-428: Was in large part because so few of them occurred in latter centuries; only one in the 19th century, and only two in the 20th . The last trial was in 1935, when Lord de Clifford was charged with vehicular manslaughter. In a display of the farcical nature of such trials, the only deliberation of the House was to ask the attorney his opinion on the case before unanimously voting to acquit de Clifford based on his answer. By
3904-400: Was sometimes useful. In Inveraray Jail from 1839 prisoners worked up to ten hours a day. Most male prisoners made herring nets or picked oakum (Inveraray was a busy herring port); those with skills were often employed where their skills could be used, such as shoemaking, tailoring or joinery. Female prisoners picked oakum, knitted stockings or sewed. Forms of labour for punishment included
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#17327941844983968-471: Was temporarily prohibited during the French Revolution of 1848 . Prison labour then specialised in the production of goods sold to government departments (and directly to prisons, for example guards' uniforms), or in small low-skilled manual labour (mainly subcontracting to small local industries). Forced labour was widely used in the African colonies. One of the most emblematic projects, the construction of
4032-522: 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. 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. These forced labour camps are called Gulags, an acronym for
4096-435: Was undertaken such as sewing, stocking knitting and straw plaiting. Hard labour included rock breaking and oakum picking. Women were sent to the female factories while awaiting assignment to a household or while awaiting childbirth or weaning or as punishment. Download coordinates as: This article about an Australian prison is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Hard labour Penal labour
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