Penal labour or penal servitude is a form of unfree labour. The term may refer to several related situations: labour as a form of punishment, the prison system used as a means to secure labour, labour as a form of occupation of convicts, and labour camps used as a form of political disgrace.
Punitive labour occupies a spectrum between two types: productive labour, such as industrial work; and intrinsically pointless tasks used as primitive occupa...
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Penal labour or penal servitude is a form of unfree labour. The term may refer to several related situations: labour as a form of punishment, the prison system used as a means to secure labour, labour as a form of occupation of convicts, and labour camps used as a form of political disgrace.
Punitive labour occupies a spectrum between two types: productive labour, such as industrial work; and intrinsically pointless tasks used as primitive occupational therapy and/or physical torment. In Victorian prisons, inmates commonly were made to work the treadmill: in some cases, this was productive labour to grind grain; in others, it served no purpose. Similar punishments included the crank machine (a device where prisoner had to turn a crank that merely pushed paddles through sand in a drum), and shot drill, carrying cannonballs around for no purpose. Semi-punitive labour also included oakum-picking: teasing apart old tarry rope to make caulking material for sailing vessels.
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