Penal Servitude: Convicts and Long-Term Imprisonment, 1853-1948

Established in 1853, after the end of penal transportation to Australia, the convict prison system and the sentence of penal servitude offered the most severe form of punishment – short of death – in the criminal justice system, and they remained in place for nearly a century.

Penal Servitude is the first comprehensive study to examine the convict prison system that housed all those who were sentenced to penal servitude during this time. Helen Johnston, Barry Godfrey, and David Cox detail th...