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PRISON FARM
A prison farm is a large correctional facility where hard labour convicts are put to economical use in a 'farm' (in the wide sense of a productive unit), usually for manual labour, largely in open air, such as in agriculture, logging, quarrying, etc. Its historical equivalent on a very large scale was called a penal colony.
The alternatives are indoor work (internal services, such as cleaning and kitchen duty, as well as various contract production) and farming out convicts to private enterprise — both within the penal servitude logic — as well as non-productive incarceration or even electronic monitoring with a tracking device outside prison.
While the proceeds of convict production may aid the public finances (in so far as they aren't lost to additional security etcetera), the greed motive increases the risk for abuse by staff, even literally whipping detainees to enforce inhumane effort. Depending on the prevailing doctrine on judicial punishment, especially penal harm, psychological and/or physical cruelty may in fact be intended.
Scope
This type of penal institution has of course mainly been implanted in rural regions of vast countries, often with a tradition of physical punishment, such as the US (mainly southern states, as Arkansas, Mississippi) and Canada.
For instance, the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica reported on the North Carolina penals system: "The state prison is at Raleigh, although most of the convicts are distributed upon farms owned and operated by the state. The lease system does not prevail, but the farming out of convict labor is permitted by the constitution; such labor is used chiefly for the building of railways, the convicts so employed being at all times cared for and guarded by state officials. A reformatory for white youth between the ages of seven and sixteen, under the name of the Stonewall Jackson Manual Training and Industrial School, was opened at Concord in 1909, and in March 1909 the Foulk Reformatory and Manual Training School for negro youth was provided for. Charitable and penal institutions are under the supervision of a Board of Public Charities, appointed by the governor for a period Of six years, the terms of the different members expiring in different years. Private institutions for the care of the insane, idiots, feeble-minded and inebriates may be established, but must be licensed and regulated by the state board and become legally a part of the system of public charities." It also reported that the state of Rode Island has a farm of 667 acres in the southern part of Cranston city housing "the state prison, the Providence county jail, the state workhouse and the house of correction, the state almshouse, the state hospital for the insane, the Sockanosset school for boys, and the Oaklawn. school for girls, the last two being departments of the state reform school."
In fiction
Movies Featuring Prison Farms and Forced Prison Labor (External Links go to IMDb)
Sources and references
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