chain gang

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1894 illustration of chain gang performing manual labor.

A chain gang is a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging work as a form of punishment. Their tasks included such as building roads, digging ditches or chipping stone. This system existed primarily in the United States, and by 1955 had been phased out nationwide, with Georgia the last state to abandon the practice.^[1] Chain gangs were reintroduced by a few states during the "get tough on crime" 1990s, with Alabama being the first state to revive them, in 1995. The experiment ended after about one year in all states except Arizona,^[2] where in Maricopa County inmates can still volunteer for a chain gang to earn credit toward a high school diploma or avoid disciplinary lockdowns for rule infractions.^[3]

Synonyms and disambiguation

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Female convicts in Dar es Salaam chained together by their necks, c.1890-1927

A single ankle shackle with a short length of chain attached to a heavy ball is known as a ball and chain and was meant to limit prisoner movement and impede escape.

Two ankle shackles attached to each other by a short length of chain are known as a hobble or as leg irons. These could be chained to a much longer chain with several other prisoners, creating a work crew known as a chain gang. The walk required to avoid tripping while in leg irons is known as the convict shuffle.

A group of prisoners working outside prison walls under close supervision, but without chains, is a work gang. Their distinctive attire (stripe wear or orange vests or jumpsuits) serves the purpose of displaying their punishment to the public, as well as making them easily identifiable if they attempt to escape. Whatever deterrent effect that may have on potential criminals, the lack of actual chains might make a modern work gang safer than a traditional chain gang.

The use of chains could be extremely hazardous. Some of the chains used in the Georgia system in the first half of the twentieth century weighed twenty pounds. Some prisoners suffered from shackle sores — ulcers where the iron ground against their skin. Gangrene and other infections were serious risks. Falls could imperil several individuals at once.

Modern prisoners are sometimes put into handcuffs or wrist manacles (similar to handcuffs, but with a longer length of chain) and leg irons, with both sets of manacles (wrist and ankle) being chained to a belly chain. This form of restraint is most often used on prisoners expected to be violent, or prisoners appearing in a setting where they may be near the public (a courthouse) or have an opportunity to flee (being transferred from a prison to a court). Although prisoners in these restraints are sometimes chained to one another during transport or other movement, this is not a chain gang — although reporters may refer to it as such — because the restraints make any kind of manual work impossible.

History

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1842 illustration of chain gang going to work near Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Various claims as to the purpose of chain gangs have been offered, some unsubstantiated. These include:

• Punitive punishment
• Societal restitution for the cost of housing, feeding, and guarding the inmates. The money earned by work performed goes to offset prison expenses by providing a large workforce at no cost for government projects, and at minimal convict leasing cost for private businesses^{[citation needed]}.
• A way of perpetuating African-American servitude after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution ended slavery. ^[4]
• Reducing inmates' idleness
• To serve as a deterrent to crime as well as satisfy the needs of politicians to appear "tough on crime"

The use of chain gangs in the United States generally ended in 1955.^{[citation needed]} Chain gangs experienced a resurgence when Alabama began to use them again in 1995.^[4]

Reintroduction

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Parchman Farm chain gang, 1911

Many jurisdictions have re-introduced prison labor. In recent years, Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes Phoenix, Arizona, and its Sheriff Joe Arpaio, have drawn attention from human rights groups for the use of chain gangs for both men and women. Arizona's modern chain gangs, rather than chipping rocks or other non-productive tasks, often do actual work of economic benefit to a correctional department. Opponents note that the gangs often work outside in oppressive desert heat; others note that participation in Maricopa County's chain gangs is voluntary, not mandatory, and that everyone else who does outdoor work there must do so in heat as well.^{[citation needed]}

A year after reintroducing the chain gang in 1995, Alabama was forced to again abandon the practice pending a lawsuit from, among other organizations, the Southern Poverty Law Center. "They realized that chaining them together was inefficient; that it was unsafe", said attorney Richard Cohen of the organization. However, as late as 2000, Alabama Prison Commissioner Ron Jones has again proposed reintroducing the chain gang. The 1995 reintroduction has been called "commercial slavery" by some in academic circles.^[5]

In popular media

Motion pictures and television

• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang was an award-winning movie released in 1932, which depicted the degrading and inhumane treatment on chain gangs in the post-World War I era.
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? featured chain gangs.
• Cool Hand Luke
• Cold Mountain
• American Chain Gang is a 1999 is documentary about male and female inmates in the recently revived prison chain gangs.
• Life - Starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence and features them working on a chain gang.
• The Last Hard Men - The beginning scene features James Coburn escaping from a chain gang.
• The Green Mile - This film features brief opening shots of a chain gang during the 1930s.
• Beloved (film and novel)
• The Longest Yard
• Robin Hood (Disney)
• Sullivan's Travels
• The Defiant Ones
• Take the Money and Run - Woody Allen's '69 mockumentary..
• Sounder

Books

• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor
• "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo
• "Beloved" by Toni Morrison

Music

• Circa 1947, Woody Guthrie, Alec Seward, and Sonny Terry recorded several chain gang related songs including "Chain Gang Special", and several other older songs adapted to having chain gang themes. They were released on the Cleopatra compilation Best Of The War Years. Guthrie had also previously written other chain gang songs, including "Chain Around My Leg", which was released on the Library Of Congress Recordings.
• Soul singer Sam Cooke recorded a hit song in the 1960s called "Chain Gang" (also covered by Otis Redding). It was included in American singer/songwriter Jim Croce's "Chain Gang Medley" on the album "Down the Highway" in 1975. The Sam Cooke song was sampled and thematically expanded by the rapper Hell Razah on the song "Chain Gang" appearing on his 2007 album Renaissance Child.
• Other songs entitled "Chain Gang" have been written and performed by Johnny Cash; Bobby Scott in the 1950s; and as a B-side song to The Blue Hearts' single "Kiss Shite Hoshii".
• "Back on the Chain Gang" is a popular song from the Pretenders album Learning to Crawl.
• "Work Song" written by Oscar Brown, Jr, Nat Adderley and recorded by Nina Simone on the albums Forbidden Fruit (1961) and High Priestess of Soul (1967). It tells the story of someone sentenced to 5 years on a chain gang.
• Danish noise rock n roll duo The Raveonettes recorded an album entitled Chain Gang of Love in 2002.
• Scissor Sisters mentions chain gangs in the chorus of the song "Everybody Wants the Same Thing" from their second album Ta-Dah.
• Skid Row (heavy metal band) recorded "Livin' on a Chain Gang" for their second album Slave to the Grind in 1991.
• Rap artist, actor and WWE wrestler John Cena calls himself the Chain Gang Soldier, and his followers of fans as the Chain Gang.
• Boney M in their album Oceans of Fantasy performed a song "No more chain gang" in 1979.
• The song "The Earth Will Shake" by experimental rock band Thrice from their album Vheissu has a chain gang-like chant in it and its subject deals with or is inspired by chain gangs.
• The Congos released in november 2009 a reggae cover of Sam Cooke's song, to be included on their forthcoming album "Back in the Black Ark".

Dance

• "Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder" is a modern dance piece choereographed by Donald McKayle about chain gangs.

See also

• Penal labor
• Convict lease

Further reading

• Burns, Robert E. I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang! University of Georgia Press; Brown Thrasher Ed edition (October 1997; original copyright, late 1920s). ISBN 0820319430. Autobiography on which movie of the same name was based; best-seller responsible for exposing abuses of Southern chain gang system to national readership, leading to their termination.
• Colvin, Mark. Penitentiaries, Reformatories, and Chain Gangs: Social Theory and the History of Punishment in Nineteenth-Century America. Palgrave Macmillan (2000). ISBN 0312221282.
• Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage Books (1979). ISBN 0394727673.
• Lichtenstein, Alex. Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South. Verso (1995). ISBN 1859840868.
• Mancini, Matthew J. One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American South, 1866-1928. University of South Carolina Press (1996). ISBN 1570030839.
• Oshinsky, David M. Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice. (1997). ISBN 0684830957.
• Curtin, Mary Ellen. Black Prisoners and Their World : Alabama, 1865-1900. University of Virginia Press (2000). ISBN 0813919843

References

External links

• Movie of chain gang in Charleston, South Carolina; circa 1904
• The Labour of Doing Time