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The restraint of prisoners -

Chains and shackles have been used to restrain and subdue prisoners for centuries. Here, infamous gang leader Nickel List, who operated throughout the Principality of Lüneburg (in modern-day Germany) in the 17th century, is clad in irons while awaiting trial. He was executed in 1699.

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Put to work -

Chaining together groups of prisoners to perform menial or physically challenging work as a form of punishment is recorded as far back as the mid-17th century.

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Manacled in public -

In China in the early 19th century, it was commonplace for Chinese convicts to be paraded in public while chained by their heads, their hands manacled behind their backs.

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Australian penal colonies -

The thousands of British and Irish convicts transported to penal colonies in Australia from 1788 to 1868 could expect little sympathy from their captors. Prisoners were invariably grouped together in chain gangs, or "iron gangs," as in this 1833 illustration depicting convicts and their military escort in Hobart, Tasmania.

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Coffle gang -

The Atlantic slave trade brought to the United States the practice of shackling individuals together. A group of enslaved people chained as a cluster and marched from one place to another by owners or slave traders became known as a "coffle."

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The "lock step" -

Shackling prisoners together as a chain gang became customary after the American Civil War. The convicts' "lock step" was devised as a method of marching prisoners, wearing striped uniforms, from one place to another. The condescending drill is illustrated here at the penitentiary on Blackwell's Island (now Roosevelt Island) in New York City in the late 19th century.

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Matching in time -

In this 1882 illustration, convicts returning from work to Virginia State Penitentiary march in lock step.

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Mexico -

In the 19th century, chain gangs were evident in other parts of the world. In this engraving, Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada captures a group of convicts engaged in manual labor by the ocean.

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Prisoners of the Russian Empire -

Prisoners of the Russian Empire were brutally treated. This chain gang and its escort is pictured outside a roadside prison in 1896. The ill-treatment of convicts and enemies of the state would reach new lows in the wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution.

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Horrors of the Gulag -

Sakhalin, a large island off the Pacific coast of Siberia, was notorious for its treatment of prisoners. Upon arrival, inmates were immediately shackled, after which they were put to work under the harshest of conditions, a category of punishment known as katorga. Sakhalin had the dubious distinction as one of Russia's earliest Gulags.

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Use of the cangue -

Authorities across East Asia, meanwhile, had come up with the idea of the cangue—a wooden device fitted around the neck that was used for public humiliation and corporal punishment. Chain gangs were often fitted with cangues, their crimes recorded on the heavy flat boards.

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Colonial cruelty -

British colonial rule in Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania) extended to shackling disobedient female villagers and putting them to work forging new roads through the African bush. These prisoners constituted some of the earliest known examples of female chain gangs.

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Chain gangs in the United States -

By the early 20th century, the use of chain gangs in the United States for prison labor was the preferred method of punishment across many southern states. Convicts were instantly recognized by their uniforms, designed to symbolize prison bars.

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Menial tasks -

There were exceptions to the prison uniform rule. Those convicted of minor misdemeanors might still find themselves in a ball and chain undertaking menial tasks such as these two in Washington, D.C., but exempt from wearing the familiar black-and-white-striped apparel.

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Where it all began -

The implementation of chain gangs in the United States is generally considered to have started in Georgia around 1908, the practice envisioned as a progressive penal reform movement and a direct consequence of the ending of the convict lease system. But it was anything but progressive.

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The South embraces the chain gang -

The use of chain gangs flourished in the South, in states that included Florida (pictured), Georgia, Louisiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama.

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The prison farm -

Two models of outdoor convict labor existed: the prison farm, and the road chain gang. In this photograph taken in 1910, a group of largely Caucasian prisoners pause for lunch on a prison farm.

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Another form of slavery -

Here a state trooper marches a group of convicts along a snowy street in an unnamed northern state, also in 1910. While white prisoners could expect the same treatment as their black counterparts, the fact was that the racial composition of the chain gangs in the early 20th century were disproportionately African American.

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On the road -

During the 1920s and 1930s, chain gangs were a common sight across America's Bible Belt. Chained prisoners, mostly African American, were put to work along southern roadways. But the conditions in which they toiled were wretched.

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Dangerous and unhealthy -

Road construction, ditch digging, or farming while chained together and often working in extreme heat exposed prisoners to painful ulcers and dangerous infections from the heavy, rusty shackles around their ankles. Disease and illness were not uncommon.

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Back-breaking labor -

The labor was intensive and back-breaking. The extensive use of chain gangs coincided with the rapid growth of highway construction in response to burgeoning automobile sales.

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Free labor -

The ever-expanding railroad network also profited from the use of chain gangs. In fact, the social and economic benefits afforded by this free use of manual labor was not lost on local authorities. New highways were built and existing roads improved, which made a significant impact on rural areas.

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Hunting down felons -

One of the more criticized features of the chain gang system was the use of dogs to hunt down fleeing felons. In this staged photograph, bloodhounds are being trained for that inhumane task.

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Corporal punishment -

Chain gangs minimized the cost of guarding prisoners. Anyone caught trying to escape or deemed to be slacking could expect a beating with a leather strap, or a thumping from a rifle butt or club. In extreme cases, correctional officers, all white, had orders to shoot to kill if necessary.

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Not fit for purpose -

Prisoners were transported to and from their place of work in vehicles that resembled cattle pens. Conditions were cramped, unsanitary, and wholly undignified.

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Meager rations -

Sustenance provided to prisoners was meager. Food was often little more than gruel and stale bread. Malnourishment afflicted many.

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Work gangs -

By the 1940s, chain gangs had largely given way to work gangs—groups of prisoners who worked off-site and under guard, but not in chains.

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Civilian clothing -

The insistence on convicts wearing a  prison uniform was also dropped in the 1940s.

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The system is abolished -

By the 1950s, the chain gang was fast becoming a thing of the past. The US government ceased providing federal funds to finance roads built using convict labor, while media attention focusing on the abuse suffered by prisoners, especially African Americans, turned public opinion against what was seen as a cruel and barbaric practice. This portrait of prisoners in Mississippi is one of the last taken of a working chain gang. In 1955 the system had been largely phased out.

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The system is revived -

In 1995 in a move that surprised many, the chain gang was reintroduced in some American states, including Alabama. Prisoners from Limestone Correctional Facility in Harvest were photographed in scenes that invoked the dark days of the 1920s and 1930s. Here, a work detail makes its way to a prison farm.

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Breaking bad -

It was a short-lived experiment. The following year, the practice had again been abandoned.

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First US female chain gang -

Arizona, however, chose to maintain its chain gangs, going so far as to establish the first-ever female chain gang in Maricopa County. In this image, women prisoners from Estrella Jail pose for a photograph while cleaning the streets of Phoenix.

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Booted out -

Media reports in 2019 suggested the use of chain gangs in Arizona had been dramatically scaled back, including the all-women detail, which apparently has now been disbanded.

See also: Notorious female gangsters of the underworld

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