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carceral labor

11 posts in ‘carceral labor’

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.

Sandeep Dhaliwal

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Preview

Breaking the Chains

Ending prison slavery and giving fair wages to incarcerated workers are necessary steps on the pathway to justice.

Tommaso Bardelli, Andrew Ross & Aiyuba Thomas

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In the States

The Phantom Prison

Incarcerated people who work as firefighters have not escaped the prison; the prison has merely followed them outdoors.

Sebastian Miller

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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.

Noah Zatz

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Crimmigration

Exploited No More

How organizing workers in immigrant detention can serve as a foundation for abolition and liberation for all.

Lisa Knox, Hamid Yazdan Panah & Serafin Andrade

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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?

Andrew Ross & Aiyuba Thomas

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collective action

Building Worker Power

How one labor union in New York is organizing and creating solidarity among formerly incarcerated workers—and winning.

Bernard Callegari & Han Lu

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Beyond Reform

Why Incarcerated People Work

A new research project seeks to understand present prison labor conditions—and build a path toward lasting freedom.

Stephen Wilson, Minali Aggarwal, Jacqueline Groccia & Lydia Villaronga

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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.

Rebecca McLennan

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social control

Against ‘Work’

Calling incarcerated people 'workers' displaces the gravity of their situation and obscures the nature of carceral violence.

Ivan Kilgore

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In Depth

Forced Laborers

The carceral state molds and enforces worker compliance, vulnerability, and insecurity—both within and beyond prison walls.

Erin Hatton

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