Talk:Labor camp

Old talk
Kwertii: I hope you understand my deletion of a large piece or yours. As it stood, it belonged to the extermination camp article. I am going to detail the system of Nazi labor camps. I will not forget to mention high death rate (or you will surely add after me). Mikkalai 02:27, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

israel labor camps?
i deleted a claim about israel labor camps, which was based on a single source:. this source doesn't seem too credible. given the incredible scrutiny devoted to everything israel-related, if these events really occurred, there is certainly a more credible source out there; if not, they shouldn't be mentioned. Benwing 00:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Reference to sentences for Europeans in Caribbean camps

 * "Some European penal deportees were also sentenced to serve in Caribbean labour camps, but strict racial segreation meant they only served sentences of 5-10 years"

I am a bit puzzled by this sentence. The link between racial segregation and the length of the sentence is unclear.

Also, I don't think the statement is accurate - there are numerous examples of Europeans (particularly the crews of enemy privateers) who were informally sentenced to lifetime servitude in Caribbean labor camps after being captured preying on Spanish shipping. I grant that lifetime servitude tended not to be that long given the death rate, but the point remains.

Can anyone shed some light on the meaning of the sentence? If not, I'll edit it in a few days and we'll see what people think of that version instead. Jeendan 21:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I have reworded the sentence in the absence of any comments to the contrary. A small amount of research pints to two main groups of European prisoners - captured sailors during the Elizabethan era, and the ongoing use of penal settlements by the French stretching well into the 20th century (and popularised by the Papillon autobiography by deportee Henri Charierre). Sentences for Elizabethan sailors tended to be indefinite, but most died within 5 years. Sentencing for French deportees appear to have ranged from 5 years to life, with most at the 'life' end.


 * If I find the time I'll do some more research on this, and clean up this top ection of the article a little while I'm at it. Any collaborators would be appreciated, as always. Jeendan 07:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Caribbean plantation slavery
I removed the following section:


 * Colonial Plantations in the Caribbean were a system of off-shore forced labor camps that were used to enslave kidnapped Africans and accumulate riches for European monarchs, merchants, institutions and aristocrats from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Although camp inmates were designated 'slaves', the majority were kidnap victims, prisoners of war or penal deportees. The death rate on the Codrington estate, (owned by the Church of England's Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts) was not unusual, with one quarter (25%) of all enslaved Africans dying within three years of their arrival. Caribbean labour camps were noted for their brutal punishments, racial oppression, family destruction and systemized rape by camp guards and overseers. Designation as a 'slave' meant African inmates endured a life sentence with very little possibility of release. African women who give birth, witnessed their children forced to endure the same life sentence. A comparitvely small number of European penal deportees were also sentenced to serve in Caribbean and South American labour camps for periods ranging from 5 years to life. It is estimated that 4 million Africans were sent to Caribbean labor camps, about 14% of whom died during the trans-Atlantic crossing. Britain, France, Spain, Holland and Denmark all operated Caribbean labor camps.

This is a non-standard interpretation of what constitutes a "labor camp" and an interpretation that seems to be original to the editor that wrote it rather than to the sources it references or to any other published sources that I know of. More broadly, by this definition, any form of historical slavery that involved large numbers of slaves engaging in hard physical labor with limitations on movement could be interpreted as a "labor camp". The definition of "labor camp" really should be limited to various forms of mass penal servitude that have elements of slavery, as is the commonly understood definition of this phenomenon. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 06:52, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Finland?
How does this differ to most prisons around the world where inmates perform work? This hardly seems anything close to forced labour camps that the rest of this article is about... Mdwh (talk) 00:29, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, it has about nothing to do with the forced labour camps, but it is still a "simplified detention facility where inmates perform penal labour". Just goes to show that the word "labour colony" may have almost any meaning at all, from Gulag to the very open form of prison (no fences, no locks, just the inmate's word). --MPorciusCato (talk) 07:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * A labor camp usually implies the person is sentenced to perform work, as opposed to being something that prisoners do in return for extra privileges - this is what the rest of the article is about. Either way, the article is rather unbalanced, since no other countries are mentioned even though most of them will have prisoners performing work. What is special and notable about Finland? Mdwh (talk) 09:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Nothing, I suppose. :-) However, it is sourced information which is about the topic of the article. The absence of similar information on 200 other countries does not mean that these pieces of information should be deleted. --MPorciusCato (talk) 07:34, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I note that the heading is notable labor camps though, which suggests to me that this shouldn't simply be a list of several hundred countries and their prison work conditions. Mdwh (talk) 11:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * There is also the point that the lead says "Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery", further suggesting that this is meant to be about camps of forced labour, and not simply every country that ever had prisoners working (the Finnish prison work is voluntary). So I disagree that it is what this article is about. Either we simply drop the mention of Finland (or move it to a more appropriate article), or change the lead accordingly and start listing just about all other countries too. I would prefer the former. Mdwh (talk) 23:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization
Should both words in "labor camp" really be capitalized?--Sus scrofa (talk) 15:46, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Czechoslovakia
I have added a section about forced labor camps in the communist Czechoslovakia. I can't find a good source for this in English. Perhaps someone else could help? Nazgul02 (talk) 20:53, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Move to Forced labor camp
I suggest this article is moved to forced labor camp (currently a redirect to this article). Urban XII (talk) 17:17, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

-Can't figure out how to do it, but footnote 9 (the reference) has a dead link, http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289 works, replace it with that please- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.206.41.244 (talk) 06:55, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

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Highlighting Political prisoners
In the beginning of the article, I noticed a paragraph specifically highlighting the use of political prisoners. I'm just wondering what is the point? If the goal is to point out that besides criminals, the governments also isolate dangerous opponents and critics from the public, let's do that. Political opponents, ethnic minorities, investigative journalists, they all get similar treatment because they are basically “undesirables” for the regime in charge. AzzAzeL-US (talk) 09:36, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Educational work camps
There are other meanings to "work" and "camp". There are some summer camps, just like in the scouts, where the youth are educated to help and work, mostly in agriculture. There's also Camp Avoda, with the name that is Hebrew for work

הראש (talk) 10:17, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Suggestions for improvement
My preliminary impression of the article was that it lacked depth and felt in-cohesive. Furthermore, the majority of the article felt incomplete and only offered links to more specific detailed articles.

The lead section did not flow very smoothly, and it did not provide a brief description of the article's major sections. It included information that was not present in later sections, specifically Convention no. 105 of the United Nations International Labour Organization. It also included very general sentences without providing an argument; specifically how labor camps have similar aspects to slavery and prisons. The last part of the lead section alluded to the use of labor camps in the twentieth century, but it did not go into further detail in the actual section.

The content of the article neglected to provide a full-picture of what labor camps entail. There are aspects of the article that are missing, such as a more detailed history of the precursors. It currently has 2 sentences in the Precursors section that ends around the time period of pre-Revolutionary France. It then jumps into the next section of Labor Camps in the 20th century, but there is no smooth transition nor is there a description for the various countries listed. There are only hyperlinks provided. I recommend to add a few sentences that summarize the information provided in the specific hyperlinks to make the article more informative. It then jumps into the Labor Camps of the 21st Century, but only provides 3 sections on China, North Korea, and the United States. There is very limited information in these subsections, and the section on North Korea is duplicated in both the 20th and 21st Century sections.

There are only images relating to labor camps used by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which can indicate an overrepresentation of European labor camp history.

In checking the Talk page, there are discussions of grammar and removal of sections for being too broad and therefore inapplicable in the article. Several contributors removed sentences for being inaccurate or using claims based on a single source.

My overall impressions of the article is that it requires a lot of work to become more substantial and therefore beneficial to the audience. As it stands, the information is disorganized and limited in nature. The redirection of hyperlinks is useful, but it could be greatly improved by creating more in-depth content summaries. Etcetera2001 (talk) 17:34, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Good evaluation. Minor remark: we don't capitalize all words in section title. If you will work on the article, please pay attention to our traditions/guidelines for layout style, etc. When in doubt, please consult our manual of style. - Altenmann >talk 18:51, 31 August 2023 (UTC)