A labor camp (or labour, see spelling differences) or work camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment under the criminal code. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especially prison farms). Conditions at labor camps vary widely depending on the operators.
In the 20th century, a new category of labor camps developed for the imprisonment of millions of people who were not criminals per se, but political opponents (real or imagined) and various so-called undesirables under the totalitarian, both communist and fascist regimes. Some of those camps were dubbed "reeducation facilities" for political coercion, but most others served as backbone of industry and agriculture for the benefit of the state especially in times of war. Labor camps of forced labor were abolished by Convention no. 105 of the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO), adopted internationally on 27 June 1957.