History Main / WorkingOnTheChainGang

* In ''VideoGame/SimCity 4'', if you build the jail, chain gangs will show up on the streets in the vicinity of the building, performing manual labour with pickaxes on the roadside. Occasionally, one of them will try and make a run for it and has to be chased by the guards.

[[TropeNamer Workin' on the chain gang]]'"''
-->-- '''Music/SamCooke''', "Chain Gang"

[[caption-width-right:315:[[DropTheHammer Droppin' the hammer]] here, boss!]]

* In ''Literature/TheLongWalkToFreedom'', UsefulNotes/NelsonMandela recounts his experiences of hard labour in the prison colony of
Robin's Island, where the tactic used by black prisoners was to work as slowly as they possibly could, so as to minimise any worth of their work to the South African state.

** Wano Country features the Prisoner Mine in the Udon region. Used as a prison to contain people captured by the Beast Pirates, the prisoners are forced to mine large blocks of stone in exchange for meal tickets. It also serves as a weapons factory, where prisoners are similarly forced to craft weapons for the Beast Pirates. Devil Fruit users like Luffy, Kid and Caribou are chained with Seastone cuffs, preventing them from using their abilities and sapping their physical strength. Finally, while the wardens and jailers have absolute authority over the prisoners, rulebreakers are not immediately killed; they are given punishments designed to make them suffer for prolonged periods of time. The idea is that the stronger prisoners are punished or forced to work until their spirits break, whereupon they are expected to pledge allegiance to Kaido and join his crew.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'' features the Prisoner Mine in Wano's Udon region. Used as a prison to contain people captured by the Beast Pirates, the prisoners are forced to mine large blocks of stone in exchange for meal tickets. It also serves as a weapons factory, where prisoners are similarly forced to craft weapons for the Beast Pirates. Devil Fruit users like Luffy, Kid and Caribou are chained with Seastone cuffs, preventing them from using their abilities and sapping their physical strength. Finally, while the wardens and jailers have absolute authority over the prisoners, rulebreakers are not immediately killed; they are given punishments designed to make them suffer for prolonged periods of time. The idea is that the stronger prisoners are punished or forced to work until their spirits break, whereupon they are expected to pledge allegiance to Kaido and join his crew.

* In ''Film/SullivansTravels'', Sullivan is sentenced to a chain gang when he's arrested and convicting for assaulting a train officer.

* The [[FakeOutOpening opening]] of ''Film/FortyEightHours'' has an escape from a chain gang in the desert. Of course, being already outside the prison walls makes this easier, if you have an accomplice.

** In another episode, Peter and friends become a chain gang after being arrested by {{Corrupt Hick}}s in the South.

* ''Film/TheDefiantOnes'' is about two fugitives from a chain gang, their flight impeded by the fact that they are still chained together at the ankle and they [[ChainedHeat utterly hate each other]].

* The ending of ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood'' sees Prince John, Sir Hiss, and The Sheriff of Nottingham put to work in one of these. Earlier, a group of four raccoons are marched into prison while chained together.

Working on the Chain Gang is OlderThanRadio and is very much TruthInTelevision, although inmates are no longer chained together. The punishment became popular in the United States soon after the Civil War (1865) when slavery was abolished. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution banned involuntary servitude "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted", leaving a legal loophole by which free labor could still be exploited. African-Americans and out-of-staters were particularly vulnerable to be sentenced to state-forced hard labor.