Prison farm

A prison farm (also known as a penal farm) is a large correctional facility where penal labor convicts work — legally or illegally — on a farm (in the wide sense of a productive unit), 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.

The agricultural goods produced by prison farms are generally used primarily to feed the prisoners themselves and other wards of the state (residents of orphanages, asylums, etc.), and secondarily, to be sold for whatever profit the state may be able to obtain.¹

In addition to being forced to labor directly for the government on a prison farm or in a penal colony, inmates may be forced to do farm work for private enterprises by being farmed out through the practice of convict leasing to work on private agricultural lands or related industries (fishing, lumbering, etc.). The party purchasing their labor from the government generally does so at a steep discount from the market labor cost.²

Louisiana State Penitentiary is the largest prison farm covering 18,000 acres (7,300 hectares); it is bordered on three sides by the Mississippi River.³

Canada had six federal prison farms, which were closed in 2010. In 2019, two of the farms have been gradually reopened.⁴

Convict leasing was a system of penal labor that was primarily practiced in the Southern United States, widely involved the use of African-American men, and was prominently used after the American Civil War. In this system, southern states leased prisoners to large plantations and private mines or railways. This system led to the states earning a profit, while the prisoners earned no pay and faced dangerous working conditions.⁵

The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited the use of slavery and involuntary servitude but explicitly exempts those who have been convicted of a crime. In response to this, the southern state legislatures implemented "Black Codes", which were laws that explicitly applied to African-Americans and subjected them to criminal prosecution for minor offenses like breaking curfew, loitering, and not carrying proof of employment. These new laws led to more prisoners for the penal system that could all be leased by the state so that it can use their labor for profit. Widespread convict leasing ended by World War II, but the loopholes in the 13th Amendment still permit the use of prisoners to work without pay.⁵

Convicts may also be leased for non-agricultural work, either directly to state entities, or to private industry. For example, prisoners may make license plates under contract to the state department of motor vehicles, work in textile or other state-run factories, or may perform data processing for outside firms. Other types of work include food service or groundskeeping.⁶ These laborers are typically considered to be a part of prison industries and not prison farms.

Canada has a long history of prison farms dating back to the first penitentiary in the 1890s, but in 2010, the federal Conservative government shut down its six federal prison farms.⁸³ At this point, the prison farm program was under CORCAN, Correctional Service Canada's job and rehabilitation program,⁴ and the government argued that the skills that prison farms had been giving people in prison were outdated, and that prison labor should focus on work related to more modern skills.⁴⁸³ They also argued that the farms were losing money, which would later be debated.⁴⁸³

The debate as to whether or not the farms should reopen continued, particularly through a group called Save our Prison Farms (SOPF) who, according to their website, advocated for saving the prison farms because of 1) public safety, 2) health and rehabilitation, 3) saving taxpayers money, 4) sustainable local farm and food systems, and 5) a model of Canadian values and heritage.⁸⁴

In 2018, however, the federal Liberal government announced the re-opening of the Penitentiary Farm Program with a budget of $4.3 million for the two farms in Kingston, Ontario to return.⁸⁵ The prison farms at Joyceville Institution and Collins Bay Institution are now open and working.

The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which ended slavery, specifically carved out the concept of penal servitude (i.e., forced and unpaid labor as a punishment for a crime). This exemption only affected those who have been convicted of crimes, not those who were still awaiting trial.

Britain had a long history of penal servitude even before passage of the Penal Servitude Act 1853 (16 & 17 Vict. c. 99), and routinely used convict labor to settle its conquests, either through penal colonies or by selling convicts to settlers to serve for a term of years as indentured servants.

This type of penal institution has mainly been implanted in rural regions of vast countries. For example, the following passage describes the prison system of the U.S. state of North Carolina in the early twentieth century:

"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."

In 21st-century Illinois, several prisons continue to run farms to produce food for wards of the state, including the prisoners themselves. The 1911 Britannica also reported that the state of Rhode Island had a farm of 667 acres (2.70 km²) in the southern part of Cranston City housing (and presumably taking labor from):

"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."⁸⁶

Films and television shows featuring prison farms and forced prison labor:

• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is a movie released in 1932, which depicted the degrading and inhumane treatment on chain gangs in the post–World War I era.
• Hell's Highway (1932)
• Prison Farm (1938)
• Gone with the Wind (1939) scenes of Scarlett O'Hara's leased convicts at work in her lumber mills
• Sullivan's Travels (1941)
• City Without Men (1943)
• Chain Gang (1950) starred Douglas Kennedy (actor) as a reporter working as a guard to expose corruption and brutality.⁸⁷
• Cool Hand Luke (1967)
• Sounder (1972)
• Papillon (1973)
• Scarecrow (1973)
• Nightmare in Badham County (1976)
• Buckstone County Prison (1978)
• They Went That-A-Way & That-A-Way (1978)
• Brubaker (1980)
• MacGyver (1988), "Jack of Spies", Season 3. Mac is incarcerated in a prison farm that uses the inmates to work in an underground gold mine.
• Life (1999)
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
• Civil Brand (2002)
• In "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo, which has had several movie adaptations, the character Jean Valjean is part of a chain gang ("le bagne", which is usually translated as "the galleys" or "the prison hulks") as part of his punishment for stealing bread.