World of Roman Coyne

Author notes

Temporary inmates at work

Romancoyne

on April 24, 2010

The chains on these are far too short and too heavy to allow for any real work.
Original notes:

Prisoners at work in a quarry run by the Correcto company, one of the oldest and most respected private prison labour agencies, from one of their prospectuses. Most of the prisoners whose term contract Correcto has bought are not lifers but instead convicts serving between 15 and 30 years. As such, instead of branded or tattooed slave markings, they wear tags with their prisoner numbers. Otherwise, they are subject to the same slave identification rules as prisoners who do serve life sentences.

In the term contract system, prison labour agencies buy the right to use a prisoner for the duration of their sentence, and take on the obligation to carry out their punishment regime and keep them alive and in good health for the duration. This means that temporary prisoners are considered less valuable than lifers, and because temporary prisoners often find themselves back in prison within a few years of their release, many people arrested under suspicion of a crime plea-bargain to get life instead of 30 years, because it means they will be treated better.

However, Correcto has always had a reputation for feeding its inmates well and has a number of good physicians on hand. This has made them a reliable partner to the government, who know that the terms of the punishments will be carried out accurately and for the full duration of the term, as can be gleaned from the whip marks on the inmates.