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Convict workers: a review article
Author(s) -
Shlomowitz Ralph
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
australian economic history review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.493
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1467-8446
pISSN - 0004-8992
DOI - 10.1111/aehr.302005
Subject(s) - convict , irish , interpretation (philosophy) , criminology , class (philosophy) , sociology , law , political science , computer science , artificial intelligence , philosophy , linguistics , programming language
Convict workers , edited by Stephen Nicholas, offers a new interpretation of convictism in Australia. The main new findings are that (1) convicts were not professional criminals but ordinary British and Irish working–class men and women, and (2) the system of assigning convicts to private employers was economically efficient. This review suggests that these findings are not supported by the evidence presented.