§ 4125. Public works; prison camps

(a) The Attorney General may make available to the heads of the several departments the services of United States prisoners under terms, conditions, and rates mutually agreed upon, for constructing or repairing roads, clearing, maintaining and reforesting public lands, building levees, and constructing or repairing any other public ways or works financed wholly or in major part by funds appropriated by Congress.

(b) The Attorney General may establish, equip, and maintain camps upon sites selected by him elsewhere than upon Indian reservations, and designate such camps as places for confinement of persons convicted of an offense against the laws of the United States.

(c) The expenses of transferring and maintaining prisoners at such camps and of operating such camps shall be paid from the appropriation “Support of United States prisoners”, which may, in the discretion of the Attorney General, be reimbursed for such expenses.

(d) As part of the expense of operating such camps the Attorney General is authorized to provide for the payment to the inmates or their dependents such pecuniary earnings as he may deem proper, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe.

(e) All other laws of the United States relating to the imprisonment, transfer, control, discipline, escape, release of, or in any way affecting prisoners, shall apply to prisoners transferred to such camps.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 852.)

Historical And Revision

Historical and Revision Notes

Based on title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., §§ 744b, 851, 853, 854, 855 (Feb. 26, 1929, ch. 336, §§ 1, 3, 4, 5, 45 Stat. 1318; May 27, 1930, ch. 340, § 2, 46 Stat. 391).

Section consolidates section 744b of title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., with those portions of sections 851, 853–855 of title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., which may not have been superseded by section 744b of said title.

Section 851 of title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., was superseded except for the proviso which formed the basis for the added words “elsewhere than upon Indian reservations”.

Section 855 of title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., was superseded by section 744b of title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., except as to the specific mention in section 855 of said title of expense for maintenance and operation of camps. Hence a reference to operation was added in subsection (c) of this section.

Section 854 of title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., was added as a part of subsection (c).

Section 853 of title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., was added as subsection (d) of this section, although its retention may be unnecessary.

The phrase “the cost of which is borne exclusively by the United States” which followed the words “constructing or repairing roads” was omitted as inconsistent with the later phrase “constructing or repairing any other public ways or works financed wholly or in major part by funds appropriated from the Treasury of the United States.”

The provision for transfer of prisoners was omitted as duplicitous of a similar provision in section 4082 of this title.

Other changes of phraseology were made.