# Convicts breaking rocks? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 28, 2013, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482 "2013-10-28T20:28:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/41 "2013-10-30T20:52:35Z")
I believe Prison Blues is a certified [PIECP](https://www.bja.gov/ProgramDetails.aspx?Program_ID=73) shop. That means they must pay the prisoners a wage equal to that paid to free workers doing the same work (this is called “wage parity”), and abide by a list of other regulatory requirements (work must be voluntary, must consult with local unions and private industry, etc.). PIECP goods can move in interstate commerce. ---
**Author:** ![Arete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Arete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arete)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/42 "2013-10-30T21:52:26Z")
> [@Lancia](#): > > What about Prison Blues (jeans)? According to their website they’re made in a prison, and I know they are (or were last time I went to the local army / navy store) available commercially. I’d be very hesitant to buy those. The clothing issued to prisoners in my state is largely made by female inmates at the state women’s prison, which means half the time you end up with sideways pockets, one leg being longer than the other, etc. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Fearlesscrusader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ac8455/32.png) [@Fearlesscrusader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fearlesscrusader)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/43 "2018-06-19T01:12:23Z")
> [@Mr.Goob](#): > > I have friends that are New York state corrections officers. Different prisons have different shops. One does metal work, another wood, another sews clothes etc… All the items are for state use only like filing cabinets or desks, not sold on the open market to undercut private buisnesses. > > The metalworking shop I was told about where my friend works, said the inmates working there generally had 10 years in before they were consiered for a job there. Long enough to prove they are reliable and it’s a reward for good behaviour. They don’t want a malcontent in front of a punch press feeding in thousands of dollars of metal all day and intentionally doing it wrong and making scrap. Another reason the prisoners have to prove themselves reliable is because working in a metal shop gives the prisoners access to equipment that can be used in an escape, or even to build something to help them escape. I live near Florida State Prison, considered one of the toughest in the country. Several years ago prisoners in the industrial shops built a bulletproof tank (starting with a forklift as the basis) and used it to break out. That must have startled the guards! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Fearlesscrusader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ac8455/32.png) [@Fearlesscrusader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fearlesscrusader)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/44 "2018-06-19T01:22:01Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Minimum wage laws presumably do not apply to prison jobs. BTW, does anyone know if these work assignments are non-voluntary–i.e. can a prisoner refuse a work assignment? Along these lines, are convicted felons still convicted to so many years’ “hard labor”, as one hears or reads in old accounts? I know this is explicitly permitted by the Thirteenth Amendment, but one doesn’t hear it in contemporary stories whether fictional or otherwise. > > Given the security considerations, I wouldn’t be surprised if there tended to be far fewer prison jobs available than prisoners to fill them. Perhaps **Qadgop** could say something about that? In the Florida city where I lived, work assignments were voluntary. Prisoners who volunteered for road work were fed three meals a day. Prisoners who chose not to work received only two meals a day. The jail in DeSoto county served nothing but baloney sandwiches, three times a day. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment…☹ ---
**Author:** ![Fearlesscrusader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ac8455/32.png) [@Fearlesscrusader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fearlesscrusader)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/45 "2018-06-19T01:30:23Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Inmate labor was used to build San Quentin Prison in California in the 1850s. Inmates labored during the day on the prison and slept on a ship anchored in the bay at night. As I recall, inmate labor was also used to build Sing Sing from scratch, and the prisoners camped out in the open at night under heavy guard. I learned this from “Cell 202, Sing Sing”, a fascinating book written by the warden. It is based on the life stories of all four men who occupied this cell since it was built. ---
**Author:** ![Fearlesscrusader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ac8455/32.png) [@Fearlesscrusader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fearlesscrusader)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/46 "2018-06-19T01:55:08Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > I believe that one of the major laws being circumvented here is the Federal Minimum Wage. You are overlooking a significant part of their benefits package, which includes free room & board, medical treatment, educational benefits, and much more. The city of Fernandina Beach refused to jail a convicted criminal because her medical treatments ran nearly a quarter million dollars a year, which would have bankrupted the city. The national average cost to house a prisoner is $31,286. But the City of New York, determined to lead in all things, spends $168,00 a year to house each prisoner. :smack: I wonder if I could make a deal with them. For just half that, I could agree not to commit any crimes. Think of the money they could save! ---
**Author:** ![Fearlesscrusader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ac8455/32.png) [@Fearlesscrusader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fearlesscrusader)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/47 "2018-06-19T02:01:57Z")
> [@Enola\_Gay](#): > > Do New Hampshire prisons share this policy? It seems a little cruel and unusual to have NH inmates continually embossing the state motto “ **Live free or die** ” onto license plates day in and day out, all the while attached to their ball and chain… New Hampshire is a state of irony. About 40 years ago, they sent a man to prison for covering “LIVE FREE OR DIE” with a piece of masking tape because he didn’t agree with it. I guess he’s lucky they didn’t give him the Chair. ---
**Author:** ![Fearlesscrusader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ac8455/32.png) [@Fearlesscrusader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fearlesscrusader)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/48 "2018-06-19T02:09:56Z")
> [@Asimovian](#): > > Several states, [including California](http://www.folsomprisonmuseum.org/now/now11a.html), still use prisoners for the manufacture of license plates. When I lived in Decatur, Illinois 55 years ago, a local judge received license plates that were made and mailed to him by a man he had convicted. They said “YOU BUM”. 🙂 I still have the original newspaper clipping about it, with a photo of the judge holding the plates. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/49 "2018-06-19T02:34:11Z")
In Colorado and some other Western states, some of the more trusted convicts are assigned to fight wildfires. Despite the fact that it’s a dangerous, very difficult job, it’s one of the coveted assignments. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/50 "2018-06-19T05:25:24Z")
Sam Cooke wrote “Chain Gang” when apparently during a tour in the 1950’s they drove past an actual chain gang - and he was disgusted, he could not believe they actually did that still. Of course, even in those days the prisoners all tended toward a particular hue. “Chain” gang because they were chained together like a bunch of animals. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/51 "2018-06-19T06:19:50Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > The idea that work has an inherent reformatory power is an idea that emerged at the same time as, and together with, the American penal system. The idea that prisoners should work to reduce the cost of their incarceration, or at least do a good for society (as in training guide dogs) has wide appeal in the present day. Possibly, but that’s not really the reason why convicts were made to break rocks in the hot sun back in the day. Prison as a space for reforming and rehabilitating inmates is an idea that emerged sometime during the 50s (although efforts to make prison less horrible an experience had begun as early as the 20s). E.g. the French _bagne de Cayenne_ in French Guyana was called the “dry guillotine” for a reason (the worst and most well known of 'em really was on Devil’s Island, but there were numerous other work camps all across Guyana). Hard labour in harsh conditions, typically with poor food & sanitation on top is/was all about punishment and hopefully working the poor bastards to death. Reform was emphatically not part of the mission statement of the \*bagne \*- indeed, even after release prisoners could typically not come back to France. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/52 "2018-06-19T06:33:56Z")
You can get your dog trained by inmates in Colorado. You can also buy a government horse that was once a wild mustang and has been trained by inmates.\* These are probably pretty plum assignments and not given to everyone but hearing about this just made me want to rob a bank or something. In Kentucky, prisoners are taught masonry, specifically, how to make those stone walls you see all over Kentucky. It’s pretty much a lost art, and according to my information prison is the only place the craft is being taught these days. (I have no idea if there’s any demand for it, but those walls are pretty neat.) \*A friend of mine bought one. She had to do lots of additional training but this horse became one of her dressage horses. She called the horse “well started.” ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/53 "2018-06-19T11:58:14Z")
> [@sidecar\_jon](#): > > I was up on Dartmoor the other day and next to the grim Victorian Prison there is indeed a big quarry as well as lots of neatly made stone walls all over the place, seems stone formed a big part of prison work in the old days. It is commonly thought that Dartmoor was built by French POWs. In fact it was built by local tradesmen and was much delayed by labour disputes. The current building was constructed by prisoners and dates from the 1850s. Of possible interest to some on this forum are the graves of the 271 Americans who died of disease there as prisoners after 1813. > **[History of Dartmoor Prison](https://www.dartmoor-prison.co.uk/history_of_dartmoor_prison.php)** > > Discover the history of Dartmoor Prison including the construction, information about first prisoners, and conscientious objectors during World War One. Dartmoor Prison Museum, UK. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/54 "2018-06-19T13:54:36Z")
> [@Daylate](#): > > Bumper sticker seen on an Illinois car: > > “Illinois - where our ex-governors make our license plates” Blagojevich is actually serving his federal sentence in Colorado, not Illinois. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/55 "2018-06-19T18:40:23Z")
‘Hard labour’ was part of the custodial sentence historically in the UK, thus breaking rocks was a common part of the prison routine in prisons like Dartmoor, etc. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour) has an informative article on Penal Labour and its history in various countries. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/56 "2018-06-19T19:37:55Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > Here’s the film (sequence starts at 13:42): > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJCzHVzOXmw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJCzHVzOXmw) > > (The film is actually from 1973). Huh, that was cool. I imagine I’ve seen it before but I can’t remember it. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/57 "2018-06-19T22:58:23Z")
> [@jeremyjb](#): > > I was just wondering if prison convicts were ever given the arduous task of breaking rocks with sledge hammers? If so, what was the purpose of breaking those rocks? Also, did convicted felons ever make license plates, as seen in old movies and cartoons? The rock crushing was often for public construction projects. > [@](#): > > Other forms of hard labor include operating a crank (in the production of firewood), carrying shot, and breaking rocks for public construction projects. [http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/ge/convicts3.html](http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/ge/convicts3.html) Which also seems the justification for recent attempts to revive the practice. > **[Alabama to Make Prisoners Break Rocks (Published 1995)](https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/29/us/alabama-to-make-prisoners-break-rocks.html)** Gravel is comparatively cheap in today’s world but historically a good gravel pit near a populated area has a return on investment that is far better than the typical gold mine. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/58 "2018-06-19T23:26:45Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > You can get your dog trained by inmates in Colorado…" We almost went through that program (as dog adopters 🙂 ). I think it’s a wonderful idea. But the logistics didn’t work out for us. We ended up adopting two great dogs from other places. ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/59 "2018-06-19T23:26:56Z")
Here’s a song that was missed. [Rock around the Rock Pile Blues from The Girl Can’t Help It.](https://youtu.be/OEyjpScJdMQ) It’s meta funny because you can tell it was a Tin Pan Alley type songwriter thinking he was being clever writing a “rock song” about a prisoner breaking rocks. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/60 "2018-06-20T00:52:39Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Possibly, but that’s not really the reason why convicts were made to break rocks in the hot sun back in the day. Prison as a space for reforming and rehabilitating inmates is an idea that emerged sometime during the 50s (although efforts to make prison less horrible an experience had begun as early as the 20s). > > … Prison as a space for reforming and rehabilitating is an idea that goes back hundreds of years: > [@Question about imprisonment and jail sentences](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-imprisonment-and-jail-sentences/800121/11): > > I’m not sure how original the inovation was. HM Prison Shepton Mallet (closed 2013) was "established as a House of Correction in 1625, to comply with an Act of King James I in 1609 requiring that every county have such a House. " [HM Prison Shepton Mallet - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_Prison_Shepton_Mallet). The 1609 law replaced the law of ?? 1597 ??. Apparently penitentiary were a bit of a 1500’s thing that (in England) later became less of a thing aa they were replaced by deportation, until the loss of the American colonies interupted deportation. If anything, the idea of paying for crime by making a payment goes back even further. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482.md?page=4)