Documents prison labour 25 results

"This paper examines the effects of a private-sector prison work program called the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) on formal unemployment duration, duration of formal employment, and earnings of men and women released from various state prisons between 1996 and 2001. It also investigates the labor market dynamics of formerly incarcerated men and women. The program is found to increase reported earnings and formal employment on the extensive margin, with a stronger impact on the formal employment of women. There is little evidence that it increases formal employment along the intensive margin (i.e., duration of formal employment). Contrary to segmented labor market theories, superior employment (i.e., higher-paying jobs) does not lead to increased job stability. Roughly 92 % of individuals who obtained formal employment in the sample experienced job loss; however, reincarceration rates are too low to explain this fact. An evaluation of labor market dynamics reveals that traditional human capital variables, criminogenic factors, and a few demographic characteristics determine job loss. In addition, black women, single women, and women with more extensive criminal histories face greater barriers in the labor market than their male counterparts."

"The debate over penal labor has been a vociferous one, as advocates and proponents have, for at least a century, made their case for or against the practice of putting prisoners to work. Nonetheless, conspicuously absent from this discussion have been the very people who most directly and intimately experience that work: prison inmates. In this article, I examine penal labor as it unfolds in one particular carceral site, namely California's prison fire camps in which state prisoners do manual labor and fight fires. The results reveal that binaries in which prison labor is positioned as either entirely good or entirely exploitative do not mesh well with the multifaceted experiences of those on the ground, who find elements of both at play. The fire camps are, therefore, an atypical case study that will hopefully serve as impetus for more research into the experiences of prisoner workers, as well as a starting point for deepening and complicating the existing debate over work and punishment."

"This article assesses prison labor regimes' role in anchoring and reinforcing market discipline during three eras of U.S. capitalism: the industrializing North, the post-emancipation South, and neoliberalism. Synthesizing evidence from revisionist historian and political economy literatures, this article analyzes the ways in which, in addition to being a feature of particular social and economic orders, prison labor has also been deeply imbricated in the very production of those orders, particularly their racialized and class-based social relations. It argues that although critical political economy has generally failed to incorporate prisons and prison labor into theorizations of contemporary capitalism, these have been and are increasingly vital to the functioning and reproduction of capital in the U.S. context. As such, prison labor regimes should be understood as part of a range of state strategies to aggressively impose the forms of labor and social discipline central to specific regimes of governance and accumulation."

"In 2008, the U.S. had between 12 and 14 million ex-offenders of working age. Because a prison record or felony conviction greatly lowers ex-offenders' prospects in the labor market, we estimate that this large population lowered the total male employment rate in 2008 by 1.5 to 1.7 percentage points. About one in seventeen adult men of working age was an ex-prisoner and about one in eight was an ex-felon. In the same year, we estimate that ex-offenders accounted for the loss of some 1.5 to 1.7 million workers from the U.S. economy. The rise in the ex-offender population overwhelmingly reflects draconian changes in the U.S. criminal justice system, not changes in underlying criminal activity. Dramatic increases in sentencing, especially for drug-related offenses, account for the mushrooming of the ex-offender population documented here. Since higher levels of incarceration are not the result of higher levels of crime, changes in sentencing today can greatly reduce the size of the ex-offender population in the future. In the absence of reform of the criminal justice system, ex-offenders in the working-age population will rise substantially in coming decades, increasing the employment and output losses."

"Où peut-on rémunérer légalement des salariés 3 euros de l'heure ? En Roumanie ? En Chine ? Non, nul besoin de délocaliser : il suffit de solliciter les ateliers pénitentiaires, où des détenus travaillent pour des sous-traitants de grandes entreprises françaises (L'Oréal, Bouygues, EADS, Yves Rocher, BIC, etc.). D'autres, à l'instar de Sodexo et de GDF Suez, cogèrent une trentaine de prisons françaises au travers de leurs filiales respectives (Siges, Gepsa). En interrogeant des multinationales, des PME et des TPE, ce livre explore une zone économique méconnue. Quelles sont les réalités et les conditions du travail en prison ? Les détenus qui acceptent de travailler peuvent-ils être libérés plus vite ? Les activités rémunérées en prison facilitent-elles réellement, ou seulement en théorie, la réinsertion ? Autant de noeuds et de questions qui sont ici examinés et dénoués. À travers une enquête minutieuse, nourrie d'entretiens avec tous les acteurs - détenus, surveillants, Administration pénitentiaire, chefs d'entreprise, hommes politiques et magistrats -, cet ouvrage propose une véritable plongée au coeur de l'univers carcéral et de la question complexe du travail en prison."