The Political Economy of Prison Labour: From Penal Welfarism to the Penal State

Abstract

The article traces the return of prison labour for commercial purposes in the United States. In the age of Fordism, work for commercial purposes was prohibited in prisons; the emphasis was on rehabilitation. This "penal welfarism" gave way to a "penal state" of extremely high incarceration rates and exploitative prison labour. While this shift mirrors the turn to neo-liberalism, it is also the result of specific labour market conditions and racial discrimination. KEYWORDSprison labour; racism; disciplining of the superfluous labour force; United States Prisoners are rarely visible in everyday life. This holds true all the more so for their labour behind iron bars. They also seem to be quite invisible in the field of labour studies. While an increasing number of inmates around the world are forced to work, their working conditions have received scant attention. The relationship between incarceration rates, prison labour, profit interests and the labour market is also understudied.This article addresses both areas of neglect. We want to call attention to the miserable remuneration of prison labour and we want to contribute to a better theoretical understanding of the drivers of prison labour. We have chosen the United States of America as our empirical example. It is the country with the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world, and where inmates are not only working to maintain overall prison operations but also for profitable industries. But most important for theoretical considerations, the high incarceration rates and prison labour for commercial purposes have not been a permanent feature of the American penal system. In fact, in the Fordist period (1940s to 1970s) the level of the prison population was low, work for commercial purposes was prohibited, and emphasis was, at least rhetorically, placed on the reintegration of felons into society. This period, perhaps a bit euphemistically called "penal welfarism", gave way to the current situation of a "penal state". It mirrors the shift from Fordism, the period of a social compromise between capital and labour, to today's neo-liberalism, a period characterised by the hegemony of private property holders. The analysis of this shift will shed light on the relationship between modes of production, the labour market and criminalisation.The parallels between these two shifts, however, should be treated with caution. Just as neoliberalism is not without contradictions, resistance and manifold manifestations across time and nations

Penal duress in (post)colonial Myanmar

“…Second, penal labour has very direct exploitative dimensions in the sense that prisoners can be compelled and coerced to work to facilitate their own upkeep, to earn money for the prison or to labour for the state or private enterprise. Third, penal labour has a rehabilitative dimension related to normalising everyday prison life and developing skills that may facilitate employment and reintegration after release (Shah and Scherrer, 2017; van Zyl Smit and Dünkel, 1999).…”

Prison Labour in Colonial India: A Case Study of Assam

“…They argued that the supply and demand conditions of the labour market, as well as the condition of the public budgets, influence the type of penalties applied by the state. For example, in the case of an oversupply of labour, the main motive for prison labour will not be rehabilitation, but the disciplining of labour (Shah & Scherrer, 2017). In Colonial India, however, the main motive of the prison labour was industrial profit, and therefore prisons were considered as the house of industry rather than the house of correction.…”