The second period, from 1908 through the 1930s and beyond, is characterized by the
chain gang. The
chain gang replicated key features of convict leasing, in that labor, rather than isolation, served as the substance of punishment, and brutality was the hegemonic mechanism of social control.
Slaves of the State: Black Incarceration from the
Chain Gang to the Penitentiary.
He hooked up the link again, only allowing The Weather Channel and the Disney Channel - The Weather Channel only so the
chain gangs knew how hot it would be the next day!
This exceptionally well-researched account looks at
chain gangs and the state prison system of Florida from about 1910 until 1960.
Fair enough, the
chain gang mentality should not be taken as far as it is in the United States.
They begin their story not on an Alabama freight train, but on the slave ships from Africa, in the antebellum cotton fields and the postbellum
chain gangs, in the factories and prisons, in the courthouses and the streets where the battle for rights is a battle for survival.
Sheriff Arpaio has also reintroduced
chain gangs to his county, including America's first all-female
chain gang.
Given the reputation of
chain gangs, support from wardens and gang 'bosses' are perhaps the most surprising.
Committee Against Torture, American police and prison guards have a record of discriminatory prisoner abuse, female prisoners are often raped by prison personnel, and public
chain gangs are still in use.
In its May 2000 report, the Committee highlighted areas of concern, including the "excessively harsh regime" of supermaximum security prisons, sexual abuse of female prisoners by guards, prisoner
chain gangs, and torture and ill-treatment by police and prison guards--much of it racially motivated.
In the 1940s,
chain gangs were outlawed as an appropriate correctional practice.
MORE than a third of the public would welcome the introduction of US-style
chain gangs to Britain, a survey shows.