Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
hard labour
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And hard labour ... the railway navvies remembered by a rock band.
▪ But the hard labour for criminals which replaced judicial execution was so appalling that it was in effect a living death.
▪ Charged with obscenity the magistrates gave them six months hard labour each.
▪ He was given six months' hard labour after he refused on principle to pay the fine.
▪ However, an extra month's hard labour made good the loss.
▪ The Vote reported one incident of child assault in Surrey, where a man was sentenced to only four months hard labour.
▪ Theo took a shorter journey-to Wormwood Scrubs, where he did four months' hard labour.
▪ Workers who lose their jobs are sent to farm camps, along with bureaucrats doing two weeks' hard labour.
Wikipedia
Hard Labour (film)
Hard Labour is a 1973 television film, directed by Mike Leigh and produced by Tony Garnett which aired as part of the BBC anthology series Play for Today. The film stars Liz Smith in her first major role. The film is the most clearly drawn in all Leigh's work from the background in Higher and Lower Broughton where he grew up. "Though elements of autobiography are buried in all Leigh's films and plays, only Hard Labour is set in Salford, – the scenes in the Stones' house were shot in a house just two doors along from where the Leighs had lived in Cavendish Road."