Chain Gangs

The Progressive Movement

Chain gangs as an American penal institution can be traced back to the late 19th century and are borne of ideas not new in the history of practices related to punishment. As early as 1697, convicts were transported from the British Isles to serve in the American colonies as slaves and indentured servants. Convict labor was also used in 1718 to clear the land that would eventually become the city of New Orleans. In 1786, Pennsylvania law declared convicts should “publicly and disgracefully labor” and were put to work maintaining the streets of Philadelphia.

Despite this history, the use of chain gangs did not become widespread penal policy until the late 1800s; it is most commonly associated with the Progressive movement of reforms instituted at the time. Progressives were concerned with the excesses and abuses of the convict leasing system, which was legislatively enacted to supply convicts to private enterprise as a cheap source of unskilled workers thought necessary to fill the vacuum in labor created by the enactment of antislavery laws. The convict leasing system also served as both a source of revenue for penal institutions and a means to reduce expenditures related to housing and caring for inmate populations. Businesses eligible to lease convicts profited from an inexpensive, strike-free source of labor.

Living Conditions under Convict Leasing

Unfortunately, the efforts of capitalists to increase profits came at the expense of human rights for convicts. Leased convicts were typically housed in long plank houses with low, two-story bunks and were under constant watch by shotgun-toting guards; they were punished for the slightest of provocations despite laws prohibiting Draconian disciplinary measures such as impromptu whipping and shooting. Adequate food and health care were minimal at best, in order to keep costs low and profits high. Consequently, the average life span for inmates working within the convict [Page 100]leasing system was approximately 7 years, a death rate considerably higher than that for inmates confined within the walls of a conventional prison cell.

Emergence of the “Good Roads” Movement

Despite demands for retributive forms of justice, the convict leasing system was viewed as functionally equivalent to the repressive Russian prison system known as gulags. In 1890, a Mississippi constitutional convention called for an end to convict leasing, and by 1903 the system was openly critiqued in the press as a form of human slavery. Among those who protested the system were a surprising number of capitalists who were neither able to procure convicts as laborers nor able to compete effectively in the free marketplace with those who were employing inmate workers. Corresponding legislation sought to restrict the sale of goods produced through convict labor in the open market. In addition, those who did employ convict labor found their profits declining as states increased the cost of individual convict leases.

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