The attic of the New Prisons Palace was never used for detention. It served as a storage space and still preserves much of its original structure. About 85 percent of the wood is original larch from the Cadore region.
As overcrowding returned, the Republic adopted another solution: sending male prisoners to serve as rowers on Venetian ships and galleys. Thus emerged the figure of the galley slave.
This work was presented as paid labor, though wages were minimal and the work was carried out in chains. Above all, it allowed the Republic to empty the prisons and staff its fleet at very low cost.
Only in later centuries would justice begin to move away from purely punitive models.
