History Main / PrisonersWork

->'''[[Creator/RachelHouse Topaz]]]:''' ... the arena's mainframe for the Obedience Disks have been deactivated and the slaves have armed themselves.\\

* In "Literature/BarberBlackSheep'', Oliver Winslow spent much of his time in prison unpicking rope by hand and pulling shrubs from the ground.

TruthInTelevision. Victorian prisons would normally put weaker prisoners to work picking oakum (unraveling old ropes for reuse as ship caulking), and stronger prisoners would spend their days moving rocks or cannonballs or walking on the treadwheel. Modern examples include stamping license plates (or screen-printing them nowadays), breaking boulders into smaller rocks, and picking up trash/pulling up weeds along the roads. This trope does not require that the work actually be productive; a Victorian punishment job was using a crank to stir sand in a barrel. WorkingOnTheChainGang is a subtrope covering those cases when a group of (usually) male prisoners would be chained together to perform some task.

* Film/TheThreeStooges: In ''So Long, Mr. Chumps'' [[note]]The sequence was also reused in ''Beer Barrel Polecats''[[/note]], the boys get sent to prison to bust out a prisoner they feel was unjustly convicted, and when there, are consigned to the rockpile to make little rocks out of big ones. In one memorable gag, we see Moe and Larry placing rocks on Curley's head and smashing them with a hammer, until Larry places a particular rock on Curley's head, whereupon he objects: "[[LeaningOnTheFourthWall Hey, wait a minute! That's a real one -- I'm no fool]]! [[{{Catchphrase}} Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk]]!".

* Film/TheThreeStooges: In ''So Long, Mr. Chumps'' [[note]]The sequence was also reused in ''Beer Barrel Polecats''[[/note]], the boys get sent to prison to bust out a prisoner they feel was unjustly convicted, and when there, are consigned to the rockpile to make little rocks out of big ones. In one memorable gag, we see Moe and Larry placing rocks on Curley's head and smashing them with a hammer, until Larry places a particular rock on Curley's head, whereupon he objects: "[[LeaningOnTheFourthWall Hey, wait a minute! That's a real one -- I'm no fool]]! [[{{Catchphrase}} Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk]]!".

* ''Film/TheShawshankRedemption''. The Warden presents his Inside Out program to the media as teaching the inmates skills they can use for legitimate jobs after being paroled. In truth they're acting as cheap labor, so he gets more money in bribes from businessmen who don't want him to compete for government contracts.
* ''Film/TheBridgeOnTheRiverKwai'': Captured British soldiers are forced to build a railroad bridge for the benefit of the Japanese war effort.
* ''Film/PhantomOfTheParadise'': After Winslow Leech is jailed on trumped-up charges, he's forced to work a record press.
* ''Film/EscapeFromAlcatraz'': Getting a job in one of the workshops is a privilege that the prisoners have to earn, but most want to since it beats just sitting in one's cell. Frank Morris gets a job in the carpentry section, for instance.
* ''Film/TheGetaway'': The opening credits montage showcases Doc's prison routine, which includes him working on a license plate line.
* ''Film/CoolHandLuke'': The central premise is Luke being forced to work on a chain gang and refusing to submit to the authority of the wardens. He's punished to work even more arduous tasks when he gets in trouble or tries to escape.
* ''Film/TheHolyOffice'': After repenting for the first time, Luis is sentenced to work at a sanatorium.

* ''Literature/OneDayInTheLifeOfIvanDenisovich'': TheGulag prisoners have to build the walls of a new building, and the main character mentions another labor camp where he had to cut trees.

* In ''Literature/TheHandmaidsTale'' and the adaptation, the particular [[FallenStatesOfAmerica way that the U.S. fell]] involved a lot of environmental destruction and toxic waste as well as becoming a theocratic NoWomansLand, so the task of cleaning up the contaminated areas falls on infertile and rebellious "Unwomen", most of whom die there.
* Likewise in ''Resurrection Day'' by Brendan [=DuBois=]. Political dissidents get sent to clean up high radiation areas in the post-World War 3 FallenStatesOfAmerica, which is now effectively a military dictatorship.
* ''Literature/LesMiserables'' begins with Jean Valjean's release on parole from a ''bagne'', one of a notorious system of forced labour prisons introduced to replace the {{Slave Galley}}s that had previously been used for the purpose. The [[Theatre/LesMiserables musical adaptation]] opens with a [[JobSong "Work Song"]] by him and the other convicts.
* ''Literature/{{Temeraire}}'': Convicts [[SentencedToDownunder sent to Australia]] are intended to work off their sentences with the promise of receiving their own land at the end of it, but in practice they're a lot of drunkards and slaves under a corrupt officer corps. Temeraire observes men quarrying stone and offers to help, as being a multi-ton dragon he can carry much more of it than they can, but for some reason they all run away when he lands.

* ''VideoGame/RandalsMonday'': [[spoiler:Randal]] is assigned to gardening duty during the prison chapter.
* Prisoners at Sunstone Rock in ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'' apparently have to tend the fields around the prison, though when Aloy visits it's on lockdown. From the sound of things, some of the prisoners enjoy being set to farming.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': When Mrs. Puff goes to prison, she's shown chipping at large boulders at one point.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Sideshow Bob works making license plates with [="RIP BART" "DIE BART" "BART DOA" and "IH8 BART"=] on them.
** In the Season 11 episode "Kill The Alligator And Run", the family is put in jail and all 5 of them (including Maggie) are in a chain gang breaking rocks, picking up trash and being waiters at a social event for the town.

* On ''WesternAnimation/CatDog'', the titular [=CatDog=] and several other characters are seen breaking up chlorine tablets for breaking pool rules.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'': The episode "The Mechanic" ends with the Penguin in prison polishing license plates as they come off the production line. When he sees that the next one [[VanityLicensePlate reads "1BAT4U"]], he becomes enraged and [[AGlassInTheHand snaps it in half]].

Prisoners don't just sit in their cell for five to ten years in this trope. Rather, they are put to work at something repetitive, tiring, or both.

TruthInTelevision. Victorian prisons would normally put weaker prisoners to work picking oakum (unraveling old ropes for reuse as ship caulking), and stronger prisoners would spend their days moving rocks or cannonballs or walking on the treadwheel. Modern examples include stamping license plates (or screen-printing them nowadays), breaking boulders into smaller rocks, and picking up trash/digging weeds along the roads. This trope does not require that the work actually be productive; a Victorian punishment job was using a crank to stir sand in a barrel. WorkingOnTheChainGang is a subtrope covering those cases when a group of (usually) male prisoners would be chained together to perform some task.

A variant form of this trope is when prisoners of war are compelled to work. UsefulNotes/TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar limit what [=POWs=] can be made to do for their captors, but fiction tends to stretch the rules for drama.

Prison labor has become controversial in recent years. Manufacturers object to prisoner-made items being sold on the open market, because prisoners don't have to be paid (or at least are paid a pittance) and their products can thus be sold for much less. That bit about not paying prisoners for their labor tends to remind a lot of people of the bad old days of officially enshrined slavery--especially given the now-banned practice in the [[DeepSouth southern United States]] of leasing groups of Black prisoners ([[SarcasmMode purely coincidence, of course]]) to white plantation or factory owners, and the disproportionate presence of marginalized ethnic minorities (again, including Black people) in prisons to this day.[[note]]In terms of semantics, if you expand the definition of slavery to encompass any sort of forced labor (instead of only including ''chattel'' slavery--that is, designating the unfree laborers as property), then penal labor can be treated as one of various types of slavery. Indeed, in UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates, the [[UsefulNotes/AmericanPoliticalSystem Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution]]--passed after UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar--specifically stipulates that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, '''except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted''', shall exist within the United States …"[[/note]] For these reasons, Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease

* ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood1973'': After King Richard comes back, Prince John is seen in prison garb breaking boulders. One of the boulders [[AgonyOfTheFeet falls on his foot]] as a final indignity.

* Film/TheThreeStooges: In ''So Long, Mr. Chumps'' [[note]]The sequence was also reused in ''Beer Barrel Polecats''[[/note]], the boys get sent to prison to bust out a prisoner they feel was unjustly convicted, and when there, are consigned to the rockpile to make little rocks out of big ones. In one memorable gag, we see Moe and Larry placing rocks on Curley's head and smashing them with a hammer, until Larry places a particular rock on Curley's head, whereupon he objects: "[[LeaningOnTheFourthWall Hey, wait a minute! That's a real one -- I'm no fool!]] [[{{Catchphrase}} Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!]]".

* ''Film/TheBridgeOnTheRiverKwai'': Captured British soldiers are forced to build a railroad bridge.

* ''Literature/OneDayInTheLifeOfIvanDenisovich'': The Gulag prisoners have to build the walls of a new building, and the main character mentions another labor camp where he had to cut trees.
* ''Literature/{{Holes}}'': Though more a correctional facility than a prison, the delinquents sent to Camp Green Lake are made to dig very precise holes in the ground from practically dawn until dusk under the pretense of building character. [[spoiler:It's actually so the Warden, who owns the land, can find an outlaw's treasure that was buried in the area.]]

* ''Literature/{{Temeraire}}'': Convicts sent to Australia are intended to work off their sentences with the promise of receiving their own land at the end of it, but in practice they're a lot of drunkards and slaves under a corrupt officer corps. Temeraire observes men quarrying stone and offers to help, as being a multi-ton dragon he can carry much more of it than they can, but for some reason they all run away when he lands.

* ''Series/{{Andor}}'': The Imperial prisons on Narkina 5 force all prisoners to work twelve hour shifts constructing parts for the Imperial Navy. Cassian realizes this is because prisoners are easier and cheaper to maintain and replace than droids.

* ''Series/HogansHeroes'' had the Heroes doing different jobs at Stalag 13, often in positions that they turned to their advantage (allowing themselves to be drafted as a cleaning crew in Klink's office to gain access to secret documents, working the motor pool to deposit said documents in a car for the Underground to find, and so on). Sometimes, in furtherance of a scheme, they'd even seek to do work that no competent RealLife commandant would permit, such as cooking and serving as waiters for a meeting of German generals... Fortunately for Hogan, Klink was neither competent nor operating in RealLife... In one episode, the Geneva Convention stipulation that prisoners had to be paid came into play as Klink was deliberately stiffing the Heroes (and his own staff) to pay blackmail.

* ''WebComic/GirlGenius'': Prisoners are shipped from across Europa to (try to) repair Castle Heterodyne, a sentient and insane castle full of deathtraps. In principle, it's a fair sentence; Klaus only sends the most incorrigible criminals there, and their repair efforts directly deduct from their sentence. In practice, it's a death sentence with delay; the castle is ridiculously hazardous at the best of times, but given that there's a serious taboo against totaling one's points out loud it's likely the blasted psychopathic junkheap does its best to kill those about to finish their sentences. Only a [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080215 single person]] has ever been stated to have made it out alive. [[spoiler:At least, until Agatha finishes repairing the Castle on her own. As Klaus promised, all the prisoners are instantly freed, though they turn right around and work for Agatha in less-lethal jobs because there's really not much else for them to do]].

* ''Series/{{Oz}}'': The prison industry is a dress factory. Anyone who doesn't have a job elsewhere in the prison (mail room, kitchen, etc.) ends up working there.

* On ''Series/OrangeIsTheNewBlack'', Piper is assigned to electrical work, along with Nicky, who spends the time drilling a hole into the wall. Later, when Litchfield is privatized, a lingerie company contracts its manufacturing to the prison, which becomes a major plot point in seasons 3 and 4.
* ''Series/GetShorty'': Miles and Yago get jobs bagging little plastic toy Oscar awards. The wardens are careful to prevent prisoners from stealing the toys, which puzzles Miles until he finds out that prisoners sharpen them to make [[SinisterShiv shivs]].

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "Small Friends", Professor Gene Morton works in the laboratory attached to the prison, where he developed the Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS). His work in the lab has granted him certain privileges.

* ''VideoGame/AmazonGuardiansOfEden'': One of the GameOver screens mentions spending your days in jail stamping out license plates.

* One of the GameOver screens in ''Amazon: Guardians Of Eden'' mentions spending your days in jail stamping out license plates.

* ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood'': After King Richard comes back, Prince John is seen in prison garb breaking boulders. One of the boulders [[AgonyOfTheFeet falls on his foot]] as a final indignity.