#prisoner labor

“Prisoner Of War Shot At Capreol,” Sudbury Star. January 4, 1919. Page 01. --- Was Attempting to Escape From Work Gang When Shot by Guard - Inquiry by Military Com. --- A military commission, comprising Major Young, Major Rorke and Captain Walker, from the headquarters of Military District No. 2 Toronto, held an inquiry on Thursday at Capreol concerning the shooting of a prisoner of war at that town on Tuesday. The commission returned to Toronto Friday evening, where a report will be made to the military authorities. Attempting to Escape. The facts as far as can be learned are that a German man named Rebus Karl, member of a gang of war prisoners engaged in the Canadian Northern Railway yards, with six others of the gang, attempted to escape. The guard in charge of them blew a whistle and shouted to them to come back. Six answered the summons to halt, but Karl continued on the run and shots were fired by the guard, a bullet entering the back of the fugitive and piercing his heart. Death was instantaneous. It was stated that for some time there was dissatisfaction among the aliens at work in the yards, the attempt to escape being apparently deliberately planned.

“The same [desire not to isolate the prisoner completely from society] holds for prison labour. In the reformist ideal integral to the invention of the prison, work was a pedagogical tool essential to reform. Its power to compel prisoners to observe regularity and order was thought to imprint on their minds, if not a love of work, at least an acceptance of its incapability. As soon as this ideal began to fade, and concomitant with the progressive abandonment of attempts to transform prisoner’s minds, penal work had to take on a whole different meaning. Until the end of the century, philosophers of penitentiary confinement vacillated endlessly between the punitive function of work and its educational value. For example, a British empire circular dated 16 January 1865 recommended that prisoners serving short sentences perform strictly penal [i.e. punitive] labour, with ‘productive’ work being reserved for longer-term inmates.”