In the waves of industrialisation during the second half of the 19• century, craftsmanship underwent farreaching
changes. Unlike the other craftsmen in the Slovene lands, the craftsmen of Ljubljana mostly
complained about the competition offered them by the craftwork of prisoners in forced labour workshops
and prisons. At that time, though, forced labour was considered the most important means of correction for
various »labour shirking« marginal groups. This basic opposition between the economical interests of the
craftsmen and the public interest of ensuring correctional means for prisoners could only be solved by
limiting forced labour to those branches of the economy in which it did not offer any direct competition to
the craftsmen.