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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.
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)
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.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 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.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, the most notorious being extermination camps and labour camps.
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.
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
"Penal labour"