No other image of prison life is more evocative than that of the chain gang. To see convicts shackled by their ankles while undertaking back-breaking manual labor truly represents the harsh reality of what it was once like to serve time in a correctional facility. The practice reached its cruel zenith in the southern United States during the 1920s and 1930s, when it was common to see chain gangs on roadsides and railway tracks wielding heavy pickaxes and mallets cracking rock often under a baking hot sun. Convict labor was eventually outlawed in America in the mid-20th century, but incredibly enjoyed a revival of sorts in the 1990s.
So, how did such punishment evolve, and who were those especially marked for persecution? Click through and find out what it was like to toil on a chain gang.