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A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime
Crime

Societies define Crime as the breach of one or more rules or laws for which some Government or force may ultimately prescribe a punishment.The word crime originates from the Latin crimen , from the Latin root cerno and Greek ????? = "I judge"....
 and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison", sometimes referred to in slang
Slang

Slang is the use of highly informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's dialect or language....
 as simply a "con". After a conviction
Conviction

One definition of conviction is "a strong persuasion or belief".In law, a conviction is the verdict that results when a court of law finds a defendant Guilt y of a crime....
, convicts often become prison
Prison

A prison, penitentiary, or correctional facility is a place in which individuals are physically confined or internment and usually deprived of a range of personal Freedom ....
ers. Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentence
Sentence (law)

In law, a sentence forms the final act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence generally involves a decree of prison, a Fine and/or other punishments against a defendant conviction of a crime....
s often are not termed "convicts". An ex-convict (or short: ex-con) is a person who has been released from prison.

rticular use of the term in the English-speaking world is to refer to the huge numbers of criminals who clogged British gaols in the 18th and early 19th century.






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A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime
Crime

Societies define Crime as the breach of one or more rules or laws for which some Government or force may ultimately prescribe a punishment.The word crime originates from the Latin crimen , from the Latin root cerno and Greek ????? = "I judge"....
 and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison", sometimes referred to in slang
Slang

Slang is the use of highly informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's dialect or language....
 as simply a "con". After a conviction
Conviction

One definition of conviction is "a strong persuasion or belief".In law, a conviction is the verdict that results when a court of law finds a defendant Guilt y of a crime....
, convicts often become prison
Prison

A prison, penitentiary, or correctional facility is a place in which individuals are physically confined or internment and usually deprived of a range of personal Freedom ....
ers. Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentence
Sentence (law)

In law, a sentence forms the final act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence generally involves a decree of prison, a Fine and/or other punishments against a defendant conviction of a crime....
s often are not termed "convicts". An ex-convict (or short: ex-con) is a person who has been released from prison.

Historical usage

A particular use of the term in the English-speaking world is to refer to the huge numbers of criminals who clogged British gaols in the 18th and early 19th century. Initially many were sent to the American colonies as cheap labour, but the War of Independence
American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , also known as the American War of Independence, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and Thirteen Colonies on the North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers....
 brought that solution to an end.

British convicts were transported to the Province of Georgia
Province of Georgia

The Province of Georgia was one of the Southern colonies in British North America. It was the last of the Thirteen original colonies established by Kingdom of Great Britain in what later became the United States....
 between 1733 and the American revolution
American Revolution

The American Revolution refers to the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which the Thirteen Colonies of North America overthrew the governance of the British Empire and then rejected the British monarchy to become the sovereign United States of America....
. After this, convicts could no longer be transported to America and Britain looked to the newly discovered east coast of Australia to use as a penal colony. Convicts were transported to Australia
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
 in 1788 from the very start of European settlement and were used as labourers in five out of the six major colonies. Transportation was eventually abolished in 1868. In Australia, convicts have come to be key figures of cultural mythology
Mythology

The word mythology refers to a body of folklore/myths/legends that a particular culture believes to be true and that often use the supernatural to interpret natural events and to explain the nature of the universe and humanity....
 and historiography
Historiography

Historiography is the aspect of semiotics that is the study of how knowledge of the past, recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted. Broadly speaking, historiography examines the writing of history and the use of historical methods, drawing upon such elements such as authorship, sourcing, interpretation, style, bias, and audience....
. British convicts were also sent to Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
 and India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
. France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
 also sent convicts to French Guiana
French Guiana

French Guiana is an overseas department of France, located on the northern coast of South America. Like the other Overseas departments, French Guiana is also an overseas region of France, one of the 26 regions of France, and is an integral part of the French Republic....
 and New Caledonia
New Caledonia

New Caledonia , is a "sui generis collectivity" of France located in the subregion of Melanesia in the Oceania. It comprises a main island , the Loyalty Islands, and several smaller islands....
. Russia
Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
n criminals who were shipped to Siberia
Siberia

Siberia , is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of North Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the Soviet Union from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the 16th century....
 can arguably be regarded as convicts. 1. “The convict system has been rightly called a ‘Gigantic Lottery’. The element of luck was greatly increased by the adoption of the assignment system, whereby many convicts were assigned to individual settlers to act as servants, shepherds, hutkeepers, or workers in some other capacity.”

See also

  • Convictism in Australia
    Convictism in Australia

    During the late 18th and 19th centuries, large numbers of convicts were Penal transportation to the various :Category:Australian penal colonies by the British government....
  • Penal transportation
    Penal transportation

    Transportation or penal transportation refers to the deportation of convicted criminals to a penal colony, for example by France to Devil's Island and by United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and Australia between 1788 and 1868....
  • Convict lease
    Convict lease

    Convict leasing was a system of penal labour instituted in the Southern United States after the emancipation of slaves by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865....
  • Convict assignment
    Convict assignment

    Convict assignment was the practice used in many penal colony of assigning convicts to work for private individuals. Contemporary abolitionists characterised the practice as virtual slavery, and some, but by no means all, latter-day historians have agreed with this assessment....


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