# Are there any countries that permit Penal Transportation as a criminal sentence? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 23, 2012, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756 "2012-04-23T22:28:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2012, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756/1 "2012-04-23T22:28:33Z")
Are there any countries in the world today that allow criminal courts to sentence convicts to [penal transportation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_transportation)? For example, _in theory_, could a court in the US sentence a person to Transportation to northern Alaska for a period of time or life? ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756/2 "2012-04-23T23:23:14Z")
North Korea has forced labour camps in Siberia. That seems like it should count to me: [http://www.vice.com/vice-news/north-korean-labor-camps-part-1](http://www.vice.com/vice-news/north-korean-labor-camps-part-1) ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756/3 "2012-04-24T00:03:30Z")
Doesn’t every country in the world practice penal transportation? Are there actually countries that only imprison people at the location where they live? Anyway, every country that I am aware of transports it criminals for incarceration. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756/4 "2012-04-24T00:18:39Z")
According toWikipedia’s [List of U.S. federal prisons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._federal_prisons), there are no federal prisons in Alaska. But according to another [Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Detention_Center,_Honolulu), there **is** one in Hawaii, and its first 25 prisoners had previously been held on the mainland. Does that count? ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756/5 "2012-04-24T00:20:33Z")
Transportation to a Penal colony in another country is a different matter to transporting a prisoner to a jail in another part of the same country. The other very obvious answer to the OP is that Guantanamo Bay certainly fits the definitions of a Penal colony. Has anyone ever been sent there from mainland US by a US court? Australia also maintains an immigration detention centre on Christmas Island, and immigrants trying to enter Australia there illegally are often held there for many years. [Christmas Island Detention Centre - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Island_Immigration_Reception_and_Processing_Centre) ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756/6 "2012-04-24T00:33:43Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Doesn’t every country in the world practice penal transportation? No. Penal transportation doesn’t mean driving a prisoner to jail, it means exile to a penal colony or Gulag, such as Australia, the US (well, ‘the colonies’ at the time), or Devil’s Island. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756/7 "2012-04-24T00:37:23Z")
With the advent of chemical castration, forceable penal transportation has become disfavoured. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756/8 "2012-04-24T01:44:18Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > No. Penal transportation doesn’t mean driving a prisoner to jail, it means exile to a penal colony or Gulag, such as Australia, the US (well, ‘the colonies’ at the time), or Devil’s Island. This is what I meant. Especially with work furlough permissions and _possibly_ probation or parole, there are some gray areas, but fundamentally I am looking at examples where a person could be effectively exiled to a faraway or remote area of the country, or to another country where they must live their life, such as sentencing someone from Brooklyn to spend the rest of their life in northern Alaska above the Arctic Circle, or sentencing them to spend 20 years restricted to St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, where they are not incarcerated but may not leave the island. Simply being sent to a prison elsewhere in the country isn’t really it. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756/9 "2012-04-24T01:46:23Z")
Ah apparently last year a law was passed allowing the US to detain and ship US terror suspects on US soil without trial to Guantanamo bay even if they are US citizens: > **[Military given go-ahead to detain US terrorist suspects without trial](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/15/americans-face-guantanamo-detention-obama)** > > Civil rights groups dismayed as Barack Obama abandons commitment to veto new security law contained in defence bill It hasn’t been used as yet, but there you go, there’s your answer, yep the US can send a US citizen, for unlimited detention to a penal colony that is not part of the US. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2012, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756/10 "2012-04-25T14:02:06Z")
In Georgia (US) there is a concept of banishment, where a criminal can be banished from a a set list of places in the state, but not all. Which sometimes leads to a perp being banished from all but a couple counties. (And Georgia has a lot of small counties.) Effectively the same as being banished from the state. > **[Criminal Law. Crimes, Legal Information & Lawyers](https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/)** > > Criminal Law. Crimes, Legal Information & Lawyers ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2012, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756/11 "2012-04-25T14:15:48Z")
In Saskatchewan, Canada, there was a notable case where a native sentencing circle sentenced a band member to exile on a remote island. Here’s the only link I can find that mentions it: [http://business.highbeam.com/5587/article-1G1-30150860/back-bush-billy](http://business.highbeam.com/5587/article-1G1-30150860/back-bush-billy) ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2012, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756/12 "2012-04-25T14:27:24Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Are there any countries in the world today that allow criminal courts to sentence convicts to [penal transportation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_transportation)? For example, _in theory_, could a court in the US sentence a person to Transportation to northern Alaska for a period of time or life? A criminal who isn’t a citizen of the country where he commits his crime, i. e. technically an immigrant, will often be deported to his country of origin after he has served his sentence. This can also apply to persons who arrived and settled in the new country when they were infants. They often may not have any connection whatsoever with the old country, not even speaking the language. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2012, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756/13 "2012-04-25T14:29:09Z")
I think it’s off the books now, but banishment (either from a certain area, or to “a distance further than Xkm from [place]”) was a pretty frequent sentence during/after the Spanish Civil War. I know several families who moved to my hometown due to being sentenced to moving “more than 100km away” from their previous home. By the time the sentence was over, they’d already grown roots in the new place, so they didn’t move back. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-countries-that-permit-penal-transportation-as-a-criminal-sentence/619756/14 "2012-04-26T03:30:36Z")
In the old Soviet Union, permanent exile from the ‘workers paradise’ was on the books as a possible sentence. In fact, it was a most serious one, an alternative to a death sentence. But it wasn’t actually imposed very often, I guess. I don’t think it’s still in the law books since the Communist world has mostly dissolved.