Making prison labor work: capitalism and control in America's prisons, 1727-1935
Date
2023
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Prison labor in the United States has developed, survived, and thrived because reformers, politicians, and prison administrators have used it as a principal tool for institutional financial sustainability, reform, and prisoner control. The concept of imprisonment and, by extension, prison labor, emerged in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Political and community leaders introduced it to manage the unpredictability of nascent industrialization and urbanization. Initially, prison labor was a means to curb the escalating costs of incarceration, but it soon intertwined with religious and social beliefs about productivity and industriousness. After the Civil War, contractors made prison labor became big business, driven by greed more than reform. Progressive reformers equated this practice to slavery and strived to make prison labor the standard by which one's reform progress was assessed, making prison labor the tool of penal reform. The attacks against for-profit prison labor came to a head in the New Deal Era. While most private contractors were expelled from the prison system, in the minds of reformers, politicians, and prison administrators, prison labor remained foundational to imprisonment and needed preservation. Alternative systems of prison labor, including state-use production and work release, were developed in this era to keep American prisoners working. These alternative systems had limitations, especially in their ability to offset the cost of incarceration. The failure to find financially suitable alternatives and the state and federal government’s refusal to outlaw prison labor ultimately led to a resurgence of for-profit prison labor in the United States. Despite drastic changes in standards of reform, control, and capital, prison labor remains a foundational feature of the prison system and the prison experience.
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Keywords
Civil War, Prison labor, Politicians, Prison administrators, Industriousness