Dig My Grave With A Golden Shovel

Prison labor has long been used on public works projects and chain gangs have achieved an almost legendary status with portrayals in feature films such as "O Brother, Where Art Thou" and "Cool Hand Luke."

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In prisons of today, through prison reform, an over-abundance of inmates and greater demand for cheap, domestic labor, much of the work performed is in manufacturing, ranging from stamping out license plates to sewing.

Prison reform introduced the idea of providing skills training to inmates so that when their sentences were completed they could be reintroduced into the workforce, thus reducing the odds of their return to a life of crime.

Chain gangs were first introduced after the civil war as a replacement for slave labor. The work was often accompanied with severe cases of abuse and neglect, such that many a man would rather die than be subjected to what many states declared to be cruel and unusual punishment.

Georgia was the last state to end its chain gang program in 1962. However, in 1995, Alabama reintroduced the chain gang into its penal system. A 1996 shooting death of a convict forced the state to abolish the chain gang, in favor of shackling prisoners individually.