Sanjana Balaji, School of Law, SASTRA Deemed University
ABSTRACT
There are various punishments and theories of reformation that have been propounded over the past few years. One of the major reformative ways for crime is prison or penal labour. This topic is not widely discussed in India but has had an average amount of deliberations across different countries. This article aims to highlight the basic idea of penal or prison labour and provide an overview of the laws in place for the same. The role of colonialism which resulted in a systematic form of prison labour stirred many debates about the need for prison labour, most of which has been discussed below in detail. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Minimum Standard Rules for Treatment of Prisoners have provided for rules for treatment of prisoners and have mentioned the concept of prison labour. International covenants like these have been used to examine the position of various countries regarding prison labour and the article further analyses the gaps that can be covered using laws. British case studies have used in certain parts of this article in order to better illustrate the views. The correlation between human rights and prison labour has been dealt with while focusing on the role of women and children, and by concluding with the necessity and importance of laws for this particular practice.
Keywords: convict labour, wages, reformation, vocational training
