Thats kinda what I was thinking too, the older walled prisons would make cool castles. But they would have the issues of castles of old, siege and artillery, and today rockets and such.
However, with a prison and prisoners you have what it takes to make your own fiefdom complete with labor, if you have the resoruces like land and water. Then just do a chain gang, or like the platation days, hire out your work gangs to local farmers and other area lords, they are required to guard, house and feed them, and you get a percentage of whatever the labor produces, if they work farming you get a percentage of the crops that result, clearing rubble, well then take it in fuel, gold or food. Working in a factory, either the end product, or what is paid for the product.
Then, you could also use labor as a comodity, city X has a labor credit of 10 labor months, city Y owes city W 100 labor credits, and they can exchange them among one another. Figure a labor credit was the work of a healthy man for one month. It would be an interesting way to do it.
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