Prevention History of Corrections—Punishment or Rehabilitation? - Prisons As Workplaces

Despite the efforts of reformers, most societies prefer that prisons pay their own way. To do this, prison administrators have at times constructed factories within prison walls or hired inmates out as laborers in "chain gangs." In rural areas inmates worked on prison-owned farms. In the South prisoners—predominantly African-American—were often leased out to local farmers. Prison superintendents justified the hard labor as teaching the offenders the value of work and self-discipline. Many free citizens, after all, earned their livings doing such work in factories and fields. Some penologists (those who study prison management) believe that the harshness of the prisons made these inmates more vindictive against society.

With the rise of labor unions in the North, the 1930s saw an end to the large-scale prison industry. Unions complained about competing with the inmates' free labor, especially amid the rising unemployment of the Great Depression. By 1940 the states had limited what inmates could produce. By 1970 the number of prison farms had decreased substantially because they were expensive to operate and the prisons found it cheaper to purchase food. In addition, agricultural work no longer prepared inmates for employment outside prison. Since the 1970s, however, support for prison factories as a way to train inmates for outside jobs has grown. Penologists believe that working in prison factories helps keep prisoners from being bored and idle and teaches them skills. While they believe prisoners benefit from work, they also assert that prisoners should not suffer the exploitation that characterized the factories of the 1920s.