# Chain Gangs in America **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 24, 2016, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752 "2016-07-24T05:53:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2016, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/1 "2016-07-24T05:53:14Z")
Are there any Chain Gangs operating in America? I’m asking about convicts that are physically chained together and performing some menial task like breaking rocks or picking up litter. I know such gangs exist to work together, my question is about the actual chains. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2016, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/2 "2016-07-24T07:52:18Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > Are there any Chain Gangs operating in America? > > I’m asking about convicts that are physically chained together and performing some menial task like breaking rocks or picking up litter. > > I know such gangs exist to work together, my question is about the actual chains. [Wikipedia says only in Maricopa County, Arizona, and only if the prisoner volunteers - working a chain gang can get time taken off your sentence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_gang) ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2016, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/3 "2016-07-24T12:26:11Z")
Not a chain gang, but prisoners in the county I work for are regularly used for maintenance tasks around county buildings. Raking leaves and other outside maintenance. They are not supervised by officers and are directed by people in our building and grounds department. I suspect they are non-violent offenders doing a short stint for DUI or whatever. Maybe it’s part of the sentence. Community service. I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![darazusa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@darazusa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/darazusa)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2016, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/4 "2016-07-24T23:29:48Z")
look up sheriff joe arpaio’s chain gang. ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/5 "2016-07-25T02:16:25Z")
I have not personally seen a chain gang in real life in over 45 years. I remember my daddy pointing out a chain gang that was literally chained together doing some sort of road work in Mississippi when I was under 13 or so. It made quite the impression on me! I often see groups of inmates picking up trash along roads but they are not chained together. A supervisor, usually a sheriff’s deputy, is supervising. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/6 "2016-07-25T12:14:08Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > They are not supervised by officers and are directed by people in our building and grounds department. I suspect they are non-violent offenders doing a short stint for DUI or whatever. I’ve seen ones where they are made to wear orange coveralls that say “drunk driver” in big letters on the back as a “scare 'em straight” measure for people seeing them from the road. Still no actual chains, though. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/7 "2016-07-25T13:35:57Z")
I saw one of Joe’s chain gangs near my house. I took a picture of it. It was several women picking up trash in a vacant lot. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/8 "2016-07-25T13:59:40Z")
There were a few efforts to create new chain gangs in the past few years. Actually steel cable gangs I think. Public outcry ended the efforts as I recall. The image of the brutal chain gangs from the past are still in people’s minds. Brutal not just on the job, but part of a brutal practice of prison labor camps that became well known through the book and movie I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. I think there are plenty of prisoners who would prefer to get out and do some work strung along a steel cable if the conditions weren’t awful, but even then the public is not going to like the idea. There are highway crews, but the prisoners aren’t chained in any way, and as a result the prisoners eligible because they aren’t dangerous or likely to escape is limited. Maybe limited to people who don’t really need to be in prison anyway. ---
**Author:** ![MacLir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@MacLir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacLir)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/9 "2016-07-25T16:37:30Z")
Where I live, it’s pretty much the same as the other posters; a group with orange coveralls and a supervisor/guard. Not even that noticeable, since the Adopt-a-Highway groups wear orange safety vests. There’s a roundabout not far from my house that has signs saying that it’s maintained by the Sheriff’s Department work details. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/10 "2016-07-25T16:58:36Z")
> [@campp](#): > > I saw one of Joe’s chain gangs near my house. I took a picture of it. It was several women picking up trash in a vacant lot. I’ve seen a men’s chain gang on Cave Creek Rd. He really makes a publicity stunt of it, with signs advertising what’s going on. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/11 "2016-07-25T23:20:47Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > I’ve seen a men’s chain gang on Cave Creek Rd. > He really makes a publicity stunt of it, with signs advertising what’s going on. Remember the giant pile of garbage that his chain gangs picked up and was proudly displayed? With a sign? Parked right in the middle of two of the biggest freeways in Maricopa where they merge? And caused a bunch of rubber-neck accidents because, you know, _ **Joe!** _ ☹ ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/12 "2016-07-28T10:14:41Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > I’ve seen a men’s chain gang on Cave Creek Rd. > He really makes a publicity stunt of it, with signs advertising what’s going on. Nothing happens in the MCSO unless it gets Arpaio publicity. That’s why he pulled deputies out of the department investigating child-molestation cases (leaving more than 4,000 of them undone) and added them to the task force raiding Guadalupe, looking for those pesky illegal immigrants in a town where most of the residents are descended from Yaqui Indians who arrived around 1900. ---
**Author:** ![garxie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de0a6/32.png) [@garxie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garxie)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2016, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/13 "2016-07-30T03:10:44Z")
I once saw a chain gang while going through the Deep South. But that was about 60 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2016, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/14 "2016-07-30T10:25:58Z")
Interesting. Considering how ubiquitous they were in movies, I assumed that they would have been quite common. ---
**Author:** ![garxie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de0a6/32.png) [@garxie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garxie)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2016, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chain-gangs-in-america/760752/15 "2016-07-30T11:59:15Z")
I was just passing through the Deep South at the time so they may have been common there back then. I grew up in southeast Texas and I never saw any there. What we had in Texas to control work gangs was a guard with a rifle, sitting on a horse. If someone tried to escape he would just chase them down with his horse and shoot them if necessary.