![Daressalaamconvicts](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Daressalaamconvicts.jpg)
A chain gang or road gang is a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging work as a form of
punishment
Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon a group or individual, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a response and deterrent to a particular acti ...
. Such punishment might include repairing buildings, building roads, or clearing land. The system was notably used in the
convict era of Australia and in the
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
. By 1955 it had largely been phased out in the U.S., with
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
among the last states to abandon the practice.
North Carolina continued to use chain gangs into the 1970s. Chain gangs were reintroduced by a few states during the "
get tough on crime" 1990s: in 1995
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...
was the first state to revive them. The experiment ended after about one year in all states except
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
,
where in
Maricopa County
Maricopa County is in the south-central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,420,568, making it the state's most populous county, and the fourth-most populous in the United States. It contains about 6 ...
inmates can still volunteer for a chain gang to earn credit toward a high school diploma or avoid disciplinary lockdowns for rule infractions.
Synonyms and disambiguation
A single ankle
shackle
A shackle (or shacklebolt), also known as a gyve, is a U-shaped piece of metal secured with a clevis pin or bolt across the opening, or a hinged metal loop secured with a quick-release locking pin mechanism. The term also applies to handcuffs ...
with a short length of chain attached to a heavy ball is known as ''a
ball and chain
A ball and chain is a physical restraint device historically applied to prisoners, primarily in the British Empire and its former colonies, from the 17th century until as late as the mid-20th century. A type of shackle, the ball and chain is de ...
''. It limited prisoner movement and impeded escape.
Two ankle shackles attached to each other by a short length of chain are known as a ''
hobble'' or as ''
leg irons
Legcuffs are physical restraints used on the ankles of a person to allow walking only with a restricted stride and to prevent running and effective physical resistance. Frequently used alternative terms are leg cuffs, (leg/ankle) shackles, foot ...
.'' These could be chained to a much longer chain with several other prisoners, creating a work crew known as a ''chain gang''. The walk required to avoid tripping while in leg irons is known as the ''convict shuffle.''
![Parchman prison convict labor 1911](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Parchman_prison_convict_labor_1911.jpeg)
A group of prisoners working outside prison walls under close supervision, but without chains, is a ''work gang''. Their distinctive attire (stripe wear or orange vests or
jumpsuit
A jumpsuit is a one-piece garment with sleeves and legs and typically without integral coverings for feet, hands or head. The original jump suit is the functional one-piece garment used by parachuting, parachuters.
The original skydivers' j ...
s) and shaven heads served the purpose of displaying their punishment to the public, as well as making them identifiable if they attempted to escape. However, the public was often brutal, swearing at convicts and even throwing things at them.
The use of chains could be hazardous. Some of the chains used in the Georgia system in the first half of the twentieth century weighed . Some prisoners suffered from ''shackle sores''—ulcers where the iron ground against their skin. Gangrene and other infections were serious risks. Falls could imperil several individuals at once.
Modern prisoners are sometimes put into
handcuffs
Handcuffs are Physical restraint, restraint devices designed to secure an individual's wrists in proximity to each other. They comprise two parts, linked together by a Link chain, chain, a hinge, or rigid bar. Each cuff has a rotating arm whi ...
or wrist
manacles
Handcuffs are restraint devices designed to secure an individual's wrists in proximity to each other. They comprise two parts, linked together by a chain, a hinge, or rigid bar. Each cuff has a rotating arm which engages with a ratchet that ...
(similar to handcuffs, but with a longer length of chain) and leg irons, with both sets of manacles (wrist and ankle) being chained to a ''
belly chain
Belly may refer to:
Anatomy
* The abdomen, the part of the body between the pelvis and the thorax; or the stomach
** A beer belly, an overhang of fat above the waist, presumed to be caused by regular beer drinking
** Belly dance
* The fleshy, cent ...
.'' This form of restraint is most often used on prisoners expected to be violent, or prisoners appearing in a setting where they may be near the public (a courthouse) or have an opportunity to flee (being transferred from a prison to a court). Although prisoners in these restraints are sometimes chained to one another during transport or other movement, this is not a chain gang—although reporters may refer to it as such—because the restraints make any kind of manual work impossible.
Purpose
![Chain gang illustration](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Chain_gang_illustration.png)
Various claims as to the purpose of chain gangs have been offered. These include:
* punishment
* societal restitution for the cost of housing, feeding, and guarding the inmates. The money earned by work performed goes to offset prison expenses by providing a large workforce at no cost for government projects, and at minimal
convict leasing
Convict leasing was a system of forced penal labor which was practiced historically in the Southern United States, the laborers being mainly African-American men; it was ended during the 20th century. (Convict labor in general continues; f ...
cost for private businesses
* a way of perpetuating African-American servitude after the
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representative ...
ended slavery outside of the context of punishment for a crime.
* reducing inmates' idleness
* to serve as a deterrent to crime
* to satisfy the needs of politicians to appear "tough on crime"
* to accomplish undesirable and difficult tasks
History
Australia
In the
Australian penal colonies
Australian(s) may refer to:
Australia
* Australia, a country
* Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia
** European Australians
** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists
** Aboriginal Aus ...
, chain gangs were also referred to as "iron gangs". They were used as a punishment for convicts who reoffended after being
transported
''Transported'' is an Australian convict melodrama film directed by W. J. Lincoln. It is considered a lost film.
Plot
In England, Jessie Grey is about to marry Leonard Lincoln but the evil Harold Hawk tries to force her to marry him and she wou ...
. Iron gangs were frequently employed on the construction of roads in remote areas where escape was a possibility, such as on the
Great North Road from
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
to the
Hunter Valley
The Hunter Region, also commonly known as the Hunter Valley, is a region of New South Wales, Australia, extending from approximately to north of Sydney. It contains the Hunter River and its tributaries with highland areas to the north and so ...
and
the road
''The Road'' is a 2006 post-apocalyptic novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. The book details the grueling journey of a father and his young son over a period of several months across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that ha ...
from Sydney to
Bathurst over the
Blue Mountains. The leg irons were installed by blacksmiths using hot
rivet
A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed, a rivet consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite to the head is called the ''tail''. On installation, the rivet is placed in a punched ...
s, and then attached to a single "gang chain" to allow for control by an overseer. The irons and chains could weigh as much as or more. Some of the convicts on iron gangs were as young as 11 years old.
The use of iron gangs in the
Colony of New South Wales
The Colony of New South Wales was a colony of the British Empire from 1788 to 1901, when it became a State of the Commonwealth of Australia. At its greatest extent, the colony of New South Wales included the present-day Australian states of New ...
was expanded by Governor
Ralph Darling
General Sir Ralph Darling, GCH (1772 – 2 April 1858) was a British Army officer who served as Governor of New South Wales from 1825 to 1831. He is popularly described as a tyrant, accused of torturing prisoners and banning theatrical entertain ...
as part of his infrastructure program. Their tasks included "breaking rocks, clearing trees, constructing stone culverts and bridges".
[ In 1828, the colony's chief surveyor ]Edmund Lockyer
Edmund Lockyer, (21 January 1784 – 10 June 1860) was a British soldier and explorer of Australia.
Born in Plymouth, Devon, Lockyer was the son of Thomas Lockyer, a sailmaker, and his wife Ann. Lockyer began his army career as an ensign in t ...
directed that each iron gang could contain up to 60 men, supervised by one main overseer and three assistants. The iron gangs "received the worst and least trustworthy characters, together with the strictest security measures". Better-behaved convicts still worked in gangs but were unshackled. Convicts who escaped from iron gangs were described as "bolters" and became some of the first bushranger
Bushrangers were originally escaped convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who used the bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term had evolved to refer to those who took up "robbery under ...
s.[
]
United States
The introduction of chain gangs into the United States began after the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
. The southern states needed finances and public works to be performed. Prisoners were a free way for these works to be achieved.
The use of chain gangs for prison labor was the preferred method of punishment in some southern states like Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama.
Abuses in chain gangs led to reform and to their general elimination by 1955.
There were still chain gangs in the South in December 1955.
Chain gangs experienced a resurgence when Alabama began to use them again in 1995; they still existed in 1997.
Reintroduction
Several jurisdictions in the United States have re-introduced prison labor. In 1995 Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Joseph Michael Arpaio (; born June 14, 1932) is an American former law enforcement officer and politician. He served as the 36th Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona for 24 years, from 1993 to 2017, losing reelection to Democrat Paul Penzone ...
reintroduced chain gangs in Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
.
A year after reintroducing the chain gang in 1995, Alabama was forced to again abandon the practice pending a lawsuit from, among other organizations, the Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white su ...
. "They realized that chaining them together was inefficient; that it was unsafe", said attorney J. Richard Cohen of the organization. However, as late as 2000, Alabama Prison Commissioner Ron Jones has again proposed reintroducing the chain gang.![Modern chain gang](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Modern_chain_gang.jpg)
In 2011, Tim Hudak, former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (french: Parti progressiste-conservateur de l'Ontario), often shortened to the Ontario PC Party or simply the PCs, colloquially known as the Tories, is a centre-right political party in Ontario, Canada ...
in Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, campaigned on introducing penal labour in the province, referred to by many as chain gangs. He lost seats to the provincial Liberals which formed another majority government in the subsequent general election.
According to their own policies, Britain First
Britain First is a far-right, British fascist political party formed in 2011 by former members of the British National Party (BNP). The group was founded by Jim Dowson, an anti-abortion and far-right campaigner.
* ''See also'': The organisa ...
(a British far-right political organization) want to re-introduce chain gangs "to provide labour for national public works". This is part of their aim to turn prisons from "cosy holiday camps" into "a place of hard labour".
In 2013, Brevard county Jail
Sharpes is a census-designated place (CDP) in Brevard County, Florida. The population was 3,411 at the 2010 United States Census. It is part of the Palm Bay–Melbourne– Titusville Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Geography
Sharpes is l ...
reintroduced chain gangs as a deterrent on crime in a pilot project. Ex-convict Larry Lawton
Lawrence Robert Lawton (born October 3, 1961) is an American ex-convict, author, paralegal, motivational speaker, and YouTuber. Lawton gained notoriety for committing a string of jewelry store robberies along the Atlantic Seaboard prior to hi ...
, critical of this move, said "Chain gangs send a bad message about our county", adding "I don't think people want to come to this county as a tourist or a beach person and see people in chains." Instead he proposed a better use of law enforcement resources would be to combat drug addiction
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use of ...
because he says it is a "contributing factor" to criminal activity.
See also
* Bucket brigade
A bucket brigade or human chain is a method for transporting items where items are passed from one (relatively stationary) person to the next.
The method was important in firefighting before the advent of hand-pumped fire engines, whereby fir ...
* Penal labour
* Field holler
The field holler or field call is mostly a historical type of vocal work song sung by field slaves in the United States (and later by African American forced laborers accused of violating vagrancy laws) to accompany their tasked work, to communic ...
* Work song
A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a form of work, either sung while conducting a task (usually to coordinate timing) or a song linked to a task which might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song.
Definitions and ...
Footnotes
Further reading
* Burns, Robert E. ''I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!'' University of Georgia Press; Brown Thrasher Ed edition (October 1997; original copyright, late 1920s).
* Childs, Dennis. ''Slaves of the State: Black Incarceration from the Chain Gang to the Penitentiary.'' Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2015.
* Colvin, Mark. ''Penitentiaries, Reformatories, and Chain Gangs: Social Theory and the History of Punishment in Nineteenth-Century America.'' Palgrave Macmillan (2000). .
* Curtin, Mary Ellen. ''Black Prisoners and Their World : Alabama, 1865–1900.'' University of Virginia Press (2000).
* Foucault, Michel. ''Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.'' Vintage Books (1979). .
* Lichtenstein, Alex. ''Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South.'' Verso (1995). .
* Mancini, Matthew J. ''One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American South, 1866–1928.'' University of South Carolina Press (1996). .
* Oshinsky, David M. ''Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice.'' (1997). .
External links
{{Commons category, Chain gangs
Movie of chain gang in Charleston, South Carolina; circa 1904
Corporal punishments
Penal labor in the United States
Penal labour