A prison farm is a large correctional facility where penal labor convicts are forced to work—legally or illegally—on a farm, usually for manual labor, largely in the open air, such as in agriculture, logging, quarrying, and mining. In the United States, such forced labor is made legal by the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution; however, some other parts of the world have made penal labor illegal. The concepts of prison farm and labor camp overlap, with the idea that the prisoners are forced to work. The historical equivalent on a very large scale was called a penal colony.
Mississippi State Penitentiary, an American prison farm in Sunflower County, Mississippi
Louisiana State Penitentiary, an American prison farm in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
This is the 13th Amendment that Abraham Lincoln signed.
The Clemens Unit, a prison farm in Brazoria County, Texas
Penal labour 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 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.
Male convicts sewing at the Văcărești prison in Bucharest, Romania, 1930s.
Female convicts chained together by their necks for work on a road. Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika c.1890–1927.
Prisoners at the treadmill in Pentonville Prison, London, 1895
Convict labourers in Australia in the early 20th century
