In this article I analyze the judicial sentences related to the punishment of forced labor in public works and presidio proffered by both viceregal and republican justices against criminals of short crimes such as thieves, in the areas of the basin of Mexico and the savannah of Bogotá. I am based on the methodology of Comparative History, in order to show the similarities and differences about the operation of said punishment modalities. I argue that such penalties constituted the well-served forms of punishment that had as an anchor point the exaction of the work compulsively developed by prisoners and that used to derive in economic utility for the government in the transit from the Monarchy to the Republic. From the perspective of the social history of justice, the hypothesis I work in this paper points out that throughout the studied period, the justice of the monarchical and then republican governments, emphasized more and more the penalties based on such forced labor, because the ideas of "social utility" and "common good" were positioned as values of diametrical political, social and economic importance. The sources used are handwritten documents that are stored in the General Archive of the Nation (Mexico) and in the General Archive of the Nation (Colombia). ; En este artículo analizo las sentencias judiciales relacionadas con la pena de trabajos en obras públicas y presidio proferidas tanto por justicias virreinales como republicanas contra reos de cortos delitos como los ladrones, en los ámbitos de la cuenca de México y la sabana de Bogotá. Me baso en la metodología de la Historia comparada, con la finalidad de mostrar las similitudes y diferencias en torno al funcionamiento de dichas modalidades de castigo. Argumento que tales penas constituían las más socorridas formas de punición que tenían como punto de anclaje la exacción del trabajo desarrollado compulsivamente por presos y que solían derivar en utilidad económica para el gobierno en el tránsito de la Monarquía a la República. A modo de ...