Against the Grain

Work In and Out of Prison

Prisons, jails, immigrant detention centers. We know them as places of unfreedom, but we don’t often think about them as places of work. Yet compulsory labor is a key part of incarceration in this country. Sociologist Erin Hatton discusses the state of coerced work in prisons, the lack of worker protections, and how work has been used as a way of dampening prisoner activism.

Resources:
Erin Hatton (ed.), Labor and Punishment: Work in and out of Prison UC Press, 2021