ABSTRACT
The social and economic context within which prison labour is being performed, however, has changed greatly since the nineteenth century. In Poland, for example, more than 90 per cent of prisoners were employed prior to 1989 as their labour was a central element in a planned economy which depended on prison labour to meet crucial aspects of its production targets. According to the German court, compulsory prison labour is a justifiable exception to a general prohibition on forced labour only when it is used for this purpose. In most countries there is at least theoretically a duty on all sentenced prisoners to work. Recognition of the complex new realities may also assist reformers in understanding the interplay between their ideas and the practice of penal labour; the debates about the right to work and the duty to work, the legal status and remuneration of prisoners and the normalization of prison labour matter.
