collective action
Making Labor Work
Today’s labor movements must see the carceral state not just as a related progressive battle, but as central to the struggle for workers’ rights.
carceral labor
11 posts in ‘carceral labor’
law & policy
Breaking the Chains
Ending prison slavery and giving fair wages to incarcerated workers are necessary steps on the pathway to justice.
In the States
The Phantom Prison
Incarcerated people who work as firefighters have not escaped the prison; the prison has merely followed them outdoors.
In Depth
The Carceral Labor Continuum
So many people, on both sides of the prison wall, labor under threat of state violence. This opens a path to more robust, far-reaching worker solidarity.
Crimmigration
Exploited No More
How organizing workers in immigrant detention can serve as a foundation for abolition and liberation for all.
activism
Alabama Rising
For the past decade, people incarcerated in Alabama have led successful national worker strikes. Could a new prisoners’ rights movement be underway?
collective action
Building Worker Power
How one labor union in New York is organizing and creating solidarity among formerly incarcerated workers—and winning.
Beyond Reform
Why Incarcerated People Work
A new research project seeks to understand present prison labor conditions—and build a path toward lasting freedom.
public history
The Buried Roots of Carceral Labor
The U.S. history of coerced prison work is older—and more northern—than its popular origin story tends to acknowledge.
social control
Against ‘Work’
Calling incarcerated people 'workers' displaces the gravity of their situation and obscures the nature of carceral violence.
In Depth
Forced Laborers
The carceral state molds and enforces worker compliance, vulnerability, and insecurity—both within and beyond prison walls.