18 U.S.C. § 436
Section 436 · Convict labor contracts
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 2 court decisions — leading case Strangi v. United States (1954)
Most recently applied in United States v. Weaver (October 2011)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Whoever, being an officer, employee, or agent of the United States or any department or agency thereof, contracts with any person or corporation, or permits any warden, agent, or official of any penal or correctional institution, to hire out the labor of any prisoners confined for violation of any laws of the United States, shall be fined under this title 1 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Historical and Revision Notes
Based on title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., §§708, 709 (Feb. 23, 1887, ch. 213, §§1, 2, 24 Stat. 411).
This section consolidates sections 708 and 709 of title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., as the offense and penalty provisions, respectively.
Words “department or agency thereof” were inserted to clarify scope of section. See definition of department and agency in section 6 of this title.
To retain uniformity words “shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and,” were omitted. The reference to misdemeanor is now covered by the definition in section 1 of this title.
Words “on conviction thereof” were omitted as unnecessary since punishment can follow only upon conviction.
The minimum punishment provisions “less than one year nor” and “less than $500 nor” were deleted to conform to the policy followed by codifiers of 1909 Criminal Code. (See reviser's note under section 203 of this title.)
Changes were also made in phraseology.
Amendments
1994—Pub. L. 103–322, which directed the amendment of this section by substituting “fined under this title” for “fined not more than $5,000”, was executed by making the substitution for “fined not more than $1,000”, to reflect the probable intent of Congress.
Cross References
Employment of Federal prisoners in State institutions, see section 4002 of this title.
Employment of prisoners confined in Federal prisons, see sections 4121 to 4128 of this title.