penal servitude
Prison with work
Penal servitude is imprisonment with hard labor, historically a specific sentence in British law more severe than ordinary imprisonment.
Convicts performed grueling physical work—breaking rocks, picking oakum, or laboring in quarries.
The term now applies broadly to any imprisonment involving compulsory labor: He was sentenced to five years' penal servitude.
- convict leasingHiring out imprisoned people
- hard laborStrenuous punitive work
- gulagForced labor prison system
- forced laborCompelled toil, no consent
- incarcerationConfinement in jail
life sentence · hard time · workhouse · chain gang · ball and chain · debt bondage · hulks · prison reform · sentencing · shackles · prison ship · convict labor · Van Diemen's Land · Botany Bay · Norfolk Island · agricultural labor · road construction · prisoner
penal servitudefreedom
Absence of constraint
liberty · emancipation · independence · self-determination · autonomy
penal servitudeleisure
Free time for relaxation
self-employment · retirement · wage labor · free enterprise · idleness
penal servitudeacquittal
Formal clearing of charges
exoneration · full pardon · clemency · discharge · absolution