Prison farm

From Freepedia

A Prison farm is a large correctional facility where hard labor convicts are put to productive use, usually for manual labor, largely in open air, such as in agriculture, logging, quarrying etcetera. Its historical equivalent on a very large scale was called a penal colony.

The alternatives are indoor work (internal services, such as claening 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 detinees to enforce inhumane effort. Depending on the prevailing doctrine on judicial punishment, especially penal harm, even physical cruelty may in fact be intended.

This type of penal institution has of course mainly been implanted in rural regions of vast countries, often with a tradition of corporal punishment, such as the US (mainly southern states, as Arkansas, Mississippi) and Canada