Chain gear

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Chain gang sweeping a road, 1909
Chain gang with women in Dar es Salaam, ca.1900
Chain Gang in the US in the 21st Century

The Anglicism Chain Gang ( English "chain gang" ) describes working groups of prisoners who, as a special form of punishment, but occasionally also as a special opportunity for reintegration, have to carry out physical work chained to one another . Activities outside of prisons in road construction and waste disposal, which traditionally should also have a deterrent effect on the public with regard to criminal offenses, are typical .

The system chain gang used to be especially typical of the southern states of the USA . It was suspended until 1955; Georgia was the last state to suspend it. In the 1990s, chain gangs were reintroduced in some states, with Alabama being the first state to be reintroduced . The experiment ended about a year later in all states except Arizona , where prisoners can still volunteer to work in chain gangs in order to earn points toward graduation or to avoid disciplinary action after violating prison rules.

The chain gang method stems from slavery and is denounced by Aimé Césaire in his anti-colonial work Cahier d'un retour au pays natal .

In American football , the assistant referees who carry the chain with them to measure and mark the yards to be scored are also known colloquially as a chain gang.

reception

  • The song Chain Gang of Sam Cooke (a hit from 1960), which is about a chained prisoner group have been covered many musicians, including Count Basie , King Curtis , Otis Redding and Showaddywaddy .
  • The piece Back on the Chain Gang of Pretenders (1982) contains several references to the hit by Sam Cooke.
  • The 1978 song There Ain't No Good Chain Gang , sung by Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings , is about an inmate who sums up his imprisonment.
  • WWE wrestler John Cena was also referred to as the Chain Gang Soldier and his followers as the Chain Gang .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aimé Césaire: Every island is a widow , with an afterword and word explanations by Klaus Laabs , from the French by this and Brigitte Weidmann , bilingual edition; Berlin [GDR]: People and World 1989, p. 102
  2. ↑ Aimé Césaire: Back to the land of birth. Cahier d'un retour au pays natal , from the French by Janheinz Jahn , Frankfurt a. M .: Insel 1962, pp. 88/89
  3. ↑ Crush TV: American Football Definitions: Chain Crew. Accessed August 30, 2020 .

Web links

Commons : Chain gangs  - collection of images, videos and audio files