Prisoner's Work

Topaz: … the arena's mainframe for the Obedience Disks have been deactivated and the slaves have armed themselves.
Grandmaster: Oh! I don't like that word.
Topaz: Mainframe?
Grandmaster: No, why would I not like "mainframe"? No, the S word.
Topaz: Sorry, the prisoners with jobs have armed themselves.
Grandmaster: Okay, that's better.

—Thor: Ragnarok

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

Truth in Television. 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, digging ditches, 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. Sometimes the work will be clearly futile, such as digging a pointless hole and then having to fill it back up, perhaps multiple times in a row to emphasize the Sisyphean nature of the punishment. Working on the Chain Gang 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. The Laws and Customs of War limit what POWs can be made to do for their captors, but fiction tends to stretch the rules for drama.

Prison labor has become increasingly 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 southern United States of leasing groups of black prisoners (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 The United States, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution—passed after The American Civil War—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 …" For these reasons, No Real Life Examples, Please!

Compare to Trading Bars for Stripes, where the "labor" is "join the military", and Boxed Crook, where there's a clear agreement that one job equals freedom. Private Profit Prison is when this goes farther, and the entire point of the prison is profiting off the prisoners in various ways (including labor).

noreallife

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Great Hell Castle by Hiroshi Hirata has a Japanese lord order the prisoners of his castle to dig out a huge pit, then quarry and bring in huge boulders to line the walls and make it watertight, then carry water up a cliff and fill in the pit. When the backbreaking effort is done, having taken many prisoners with it, he orders them to empty the water, destroy the walls, and fill it in, killing those who protest. This is done multiple times over fifteen years, with the promise that those who survive (many die from the work and the harsh overseers, others commit suicide) will become samurai.
• In One Piece:
  • Tequila Wolf is an extremely long bridge constructed entirely by people arrested for defying the World Government—so long that the bridge is deemed a country. The bridge has been in construction for centuries, and a lot of people from the Revolutionary Army toil on it. Nico Robin, a main character, is sent there as a prisoner; another group from the Revolutionary Army comes by and frees Robin and the other laborers, allowing her to reunite with the other main characters.
  • Those arrested in the country of Wano are sent to the mine in the Udon region, where there are five facilities. One requires the laborers to haul large cubes of stone, while another one has them in the ironworks, though the other three are unknown.

Asian Animation

• Lamput: In "Doc & The Thief", an arrested Fat Doc is made to chip big rocks with several other prisoners. Fat Doc misses Slim Doc and Lamput so much that he shapes his rock to look like them.
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: A variant appears in Great War in the Bizarre World episode 31, where it's one of the rabbit prisoners telling the others what they should do rather than the officers since the rabbit has the longest teeth of them (which determines their hiearchy). The rabbits are made to break rocks with hammers.

Comic Books

• Horizon Zero Dawn: While Ersa manages to impress Jiran enough not to keep her in the Sun-Ring, instead he keeps her as a slave to clean out the boar's pen of its excrement with nothing but her hands.
• Happens in Lucky Luke: prisoners are set to work breaking rocks (we never see what the gravel is used for). One story featured a prisoner named Joe Milton who'd gotten so used to breaking rocks he shaped them into little cubes or made ashtrays, while another in Alcatraz has the prisoners swing their hammers simultaneously, causing earthquakes.

Fan Works

• Shows up in two Star Wars fics:
  • Going Solo: Luke, Han and Leia are being made to haul rocks until Han, who already has an injured arm with a knife tip still embedded, passes out. Then the focus shifts to basically how much the Mad Doctor can torture Han while 'treating' it and the gang escaping.
  • The Jedi Way: Sacrifice: Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are being forced to work. The trouble is, Qui-Gon breaks his previously injured knee. Obi-Wan tries to do both his work and his Master's so Qui-Gon won't starve, but it soon becomes too much and Qui-Gon executes an escape plan before Obi-Wan dies on him.
• With This Ring: Jade, having some cooking skills from her League of Shadows education, gets involved in the kitchens at the Gloria McDonald prison, and according to Paul, she basically takes over.
  She's made them go all vegetarian but good veg is so much cheaper than poor meat there haven't been many complaints.

Films - Animated

• Megamind: The title character lands in a prison and is set to work making license plates.
• Robin Hood (1973): After King Richard comes back, Prince John and his henchmen are seen in prison garb breaking boulders. One of the boulders falls on his foot as a final indignity.

Films — Live-Action

• The Bridge on the River Kwai: Captured British soldiers are forced to build a railroad bridge for the benefit of the Japanese war effort.
• Cool Hand Luke: 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.
• Escape from Alcatraz: 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.
• Joshuu Sasori: The prisoners are forced to dig pointless holes. Eventually, as a punishment, Sasori is forced to continue digging on her own for two days without stopping, which only escalates to the other prisoners then commanded to begin filling it in while she remains at the bottom digging.
• The Getaway: The opening credits montage showcases Doc's prison routine, which includes him working on a license plate line.
• The Holy Office: After repenting for the first time, Luis is sentenced to work at a sanatorium.
• In the movie version of Les Misérables (2012), the prisoners are set to work dragging an old warship into dry-dock, by hand, in the rain. Even with hundreds of them, they barely move the ship at all.
• My Führer: When he's called upon to help coaching Adolf Hitler for his speeches, Jewish actor Adolf Grünbaum (Ulrich Mühe) is found digging a ditch alongside other concentration camp inmates with submachine gun-equipped German guards around.
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? opens on our three protagonists escaping from a chain gang. The soundtrack features a recording of an actual dust-bowl-era chain gang singing a work song.
• Phantom of the Paradise: After Winslow Leech is jailed on trumped-up charges, he's forced to work a record press.
• In Rambo: First Blood Part II, Rambo is shown doing the "making big rocks into little rocks" bit with a sledgehammer for his stunts in First Blood.
• The Shawshank Redemption. 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.
• The Three Stooges: In So Long, Mr. Chumps ^note The sequence was also reused in Beer Barrel Polecats, 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: "Hey, wait a minute! That's a real one -- I'm no fool! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!".
• Superman II: While they're incarcerated in Metropolis Prison, Lex Luthor and his henchman Otis work in the prison laundry.
• Take the Money and Run: Woody Allen's character works in the prison laundry, where he steals t-shirts for a proposed prison escape by putting them on. He builds up so many layers he ends up looking like a bodybuilder from the waist up.

Literature

• In "Barber Black Sheep'', Oliver Winslow spent much of his time in prison unpicking rope by hand (just as described in the trope description) and pulling shrubs from the ground.
• In the Escape from Furnace series, prisoners in the eponymous 'Furnace' prison are forced to use pickaxes to mine out new rooms in order to expand the place (the prison is located underground).
• In The Handmaid's Tale and the adaptation, the particular way that the U.S. fell involved a lot of environmental destruction and toxic waste as well as becoming a theocratic No Woman's Land, so the task of cleaning up the contaminated areas falls on infertile and rebellious "Unwomen", most of whom die there.
• 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. It's actually so the Warden, who owns the land, can find an outlaw's treasure that was buried in the area.
• Les Misérables 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 Galleys that had previously been used for the purpose. The musical adaptation opens with a "Work Song" by him and the other convicts.
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich: 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.
• Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois. Political dissidents get sent to clean up high radiation areas in the post-World War 3 Fallen States of America, which is now effectively a military dictatorship.
• 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.
• The Wheel of Time
  • The Aiel Proud Warrior Race have two versions:
    • Those who are captured in battle are obligated to serve as gai'shain, obeying their captors faithfully and peacefully for a year and a day to restore their lost honour.
    • The lowest criminals are deemed da'tsang, "Despised Ones" who perform unnecessary labor in full view of the community. This is always obviously pointless make-work like moving piles of rock back and forth; they are forbidden from doing anything at all worthwhile, to emphasize the depth of their shame.
  • The highest punishment in the Aes Sedai Magical Society is to be De-Powered and consigned to a lifetime of menial labour. This is more to ruin their image than to punish them personally: an exiled or executed leader might inspire a rebellion, but no one will follow a scullery maid.

Live-Action TV

• 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.
• Breakout Kings: In the pilot episode, the escapee works making licence plates in the prison workshop. He saves up the rejected plates and uses them to construct a shield that he uses to hide his presence when he breaks out via an Underside Ride.
• Escape at Dannemora: Prisoners Matt and Sweat make pants in the prison workshop, which is how they know Tilly, the supervisor whom they both seduce as a prelude to enlisting her help in escaping. Based on a true story.
• Get Shorty: 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 shivs.
• Hogan's Heroes 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 Real Life 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 Real Life... 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.
• The Mandalorian. In "The Believer", Mayfeld is shown in a New Republic prison camp, breaking up decommissioned Imperial TIE fighters for scrap. Downplayed with Mythrol, the bounty the title character captured in his introductory scene. When we next meet him in "The Siege", he's working for Magistrate Greef as his accountant and administrative assistant in a very long-term work release program (leading to a Running Gag of Greef knocking time off his sentence every time he Got Volunteered to do something dangerous).
• My Name Is Earl: A flashback during the Prison Season shows the prison's incompetent Warden's idea for the prison to make ladders instead of license plates and of course we see a group of prisoners using them to escape the prison walls.
• On Orange Is the New Black, 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.
• The Outer Limits (1995): 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.
• 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.

Tabletop Games

• Call of Cthulhu: The supplement Cthulhu Companion: Ghastly Adventures and Erudite Lore includes a list of jobs prisoners can perform in its article on prisons.
  Big House State Pen (U.S.). The prisoners work on various state contracts, such as making license plates.
  Wayshearn Co. Work Farm (U.S.). The prisoners are put on standard chain gangs repairing county roads.
  Boleta Ocho (Latin America). Sometimes a wealthy person will draft a hundred or so prisoners to work on a bridge or road, cut sugar cane or fight a fire.

Video Games

• Amazon: Guardians of Eden: One of the Game Over screens mentions spending your days in jail stamping out license plates.
• Prisoners at Sunstone Rock in Horizon Zero Dawn 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.
• In Legend of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse, Mickey returns to the Kingdom of Pete after going on a quest to defeat the Sorcerer of Darkness and recover the Water of life. Just before the final battle with King Pete, Pete vows that he will have Mickey break rocks in his royal quarry for impersonating a king, even though Mickey has proven himself to be worthy of being the new king as written in the ancient scroll. At the end of the game, Mickey becomes the new king of the Kingdom of Pete and renames it the Kingdom of Mickey, and he makes Pete his prisoner, having him break rocks in the quarry.
• Randal's Monday: Randal is assigned to gardening duty during the prison chapter.
• SimCity 3000: The maximum security prison gives the fun statistic "license plates created".

Web Comics

• Girl Genius: 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 single person has ever been stated to have made it out alive. 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.

Web Original

• Minilife TV: In "Happiness Is A Sparked Lake", Archie encounters several members of the X-Team who are sentenced to do community service in the park while being watched by robo-guards.

Western Animation

• Batman: The Animated Series: 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 reads "1BAT4U", he becomes enraged and snaps it in half.
• On CatDog, the titular CatDog and several other characters are seen breaking up chlorine tablets for breaking pool rules.
• The Fairly OddParents!: The kids' play area is depicted as a prison, complete with license plate stamping machine.
• Johnny Bravo: While an inmate, Johnny is told to chip a large boulder apart, glue it back together, then chip it up again.
• The Looney Tunes Show: Lampshaded by Bugs Bunny in the episode "Jailbird and Jailbunny".
  Bugs: Excuse me, but what are we doing here? Are we building something or are we just making big rocks into little rocks?
• The Simpsons:
  • 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.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: When Mrs. Puff goes to prison, she's shown chipping at large boulders at one point.
• Totally Spies!: In "Evil Professor", after Sam says that the girls need to get part-time jobs in order to keep their penthouse suite, the three get an Imagine Spot of them dressed in prison stripes and breaking rocks with mallets.

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