Prison Farms

History

While prison farms have existed at various points throughout the United States, the development was most important in the South. Following the Civil War, many states in that region leased convicts to private plantation and farm owners. The convict lease system emerged partly because the war destroyed most enclosed penitentiaries. States lacking the resources to rebuild or establish prisons resorted to leasing as a means for supporting their convict populations. Many of the prisoners leased to private business interests labored on large plantations, although some states contracted forces to such enterprises as railroads, turpentine forests, and coal mines. Since the largest number of those leased to farms and plantations consisted of recently freed slaves, and later, their descendants, the convict lease system closely resembled chattel slavery. Working in gangs supervised by armed guards, predominantly African American workforces labored on Southern cotton and sugar cane farms under brutal and inhumane conditions.

By the 1920s, virtually all Southern states had abolished the convict lease system. However, those same states owned and operated large prison plantations, usually known as “farms,” where predominantly African American convict forces labored under deplorable conditions comparable to those under slavery and the lease system. Southern prison farms primarily raised cotton for sale upon the open market. Female inmates often engaged in outdoor farm labor as well. States expected agriculture to support convict populations, produce revenue for their treasuries, and prevent prisoner idleness. Officials maintained that both the convict lease system and state farms instilled positive work attitudes among black as well as white convicts.

Some states, most notably Texas and Louisiana, supplemented commercial production of cotton with other crops, including vegetables, grains, and livestock. States also fed their convict populations with prison farm products. Since states were forced to purchase and maintain land and equipment, prison farming was usually less profitable than the convict lease system. Texas's scattered properties prevented that state's correctional system from ever attaining a self-sustaining status. Mississippi's Parchman Farm, however, enjoyed much greater financial success.

Many penologists extolled the virtues of prison farms and advocated their establishment throughout the country, since they prevented inmate idleness. However, agriculture exposed convicts to degrading [Page 724]and unhealthy working and living conditions typified by disease, physical violence, and correctional practices that did little to advance them vocationally, intellectually, or spiritually. Located in remote rural regions and generally removed from public view, prison farms subjected inmates to terrible abuses from staff as well as other inmates. The prisoners' rights revolution, epitomized by landmark federal court decisions in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas, ultimately ameliorated some of the worse abuses of prison farm labor. Along with the development of more correctional industries and increased legislative appropriations, federal judicial intervention made penal systems less dependent upon revenues derived from agriculture.

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