Of course, I’m talking about those heavy lumps of metal that made sure prisoners moved slowly and noisily.
I don’t believe you’ll see prisoners dragging a ball and chain anymore except in movies or cartoons, but I do wonder - when were they in widespread use, if ever? Why were they discontinued? My WAG is that the ball and chain disappeared long before there was much concern about humane treatment of prisoners, so I’m thinking there may have been some other expedient.
Are there any countries that still use the ball and chain?
And finally, how much does the thing weigh? Could they be used effectively as weapons, or even knocking down walls?
I read somewhere that just before WWI, in France, people sentenced to the galleys still had to be chained two by two or to drag the ball oand chain. The former was the standart use, the latter was a disciplinary punishment.
I found a reference about the galleys regulations stating that the prisonner had to be chained to another and drag a ball. The chain linking two prisonners had to weight 2,6 kg (a little less than 6 pounds). They wouldn’t be chained to another prisonner anymore after five years of good conduct. That would be in France in 1810.
I also found a mention stating that the chain was suppressed in 1837. So I might have been wrong in my previous post
And I couldn’t find the weight of the ball.
I found something else. It’s the acccount of the deportation of political prisonners in 1853 written in 1861 by a man who escaped the Cayenne galleys.
He states that upon their arrival they were chained with a balln which was apparently an actual connon ball. The ball weighted 15 kg , and the chain itself (including the devices keeping it attached to their leg) 10 kgs, for a total of 25 kgs. That would be around 50-60 pounds total. That would also make the thing not very manoeuvrable to use it as a weapon, I suspect.
I’m recalling a bachelor party I attended years ago. The groom to be was grabbed the minute he walked in the room, and a ten pound ball and chain was attached to his ankle. More laughter then what should be allowed in one room…funnier still when he was delivered home, extremely drunk, at 5:30 in the AM, still locked up. The bride to be was given the key the next day. Don’t know how long she waited before freeing him.
I recall from a long ago trip to Alcatraz that they used the ball and chain. I think they all had the ball and chain after getting off the boat, before entering the building. And some high risk prisoners had the ball and chain forever. I don’t know if other American prisons used them though.
