Exclusion and Extraction: Criminal Justice Contact and the Reallocation of Labor

Abstract

higher per capita than any other nation, including China and Russia. The dramatic expansion of the criminal justice system, with its attendant collateral consequences, has left no major institution untouched. Perhaps nowhere, however, have ef ects of the system's growing reach been studied more than in the labor market. As is by now well known, contact with the criminal justice system is associated with significantly poorer employment outcomes. Arrest, conviction, and incarceration reduce the odds of searching for work (Sugie 2018; Smith and Broege 2019), and, contingent on a search, of getting a job (Apel and Sweeten 2010). When employed, individuals who have had criminal justice contact struggle with job stability, annually working many fewer weeks and earning significantly lower wages (

Exclusion and exploitation: The incarceration of Black Americans from slavery to the present

“…This is far from the first essay to propose that understanding incarceration in the United States requires integrating the study of racial inequality with the study of political economy [see, e.g., (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)]. But I have aimed to provide a parsimonious framework that describes precisely how the Black incarceration rate has been affected by the dynamics of exploitation and exclusion over time and across space.…”

“…This literature has shown that the study of incarceration in the United States must be situated in a broader history of racial inequality stretching back to slavery. But to understand longrun patterns in the Black incarceration rate from slavery to the present, we need to integrate an analysis of racial inequality with an analysis of political economy (2)(3)(4)(5)(6). Doing so enables us to explain otherwise puzzling facts, like why the Black incarceration rate was lower in the South than in the North for much of the 20th century (Fig.…”

The Political Economy of Incarceration in the Cotton South, 1910–1925

“…In documenting the relationship between peonage and imprisonment in the early 20th-century South, our analysis contributes to a growing body of sociological research showing how the threat of incarceration reinforces the use of coercion in the labor market, both historically and today (Steinberg 2016;Zatz 2016Zatz , 2020Hatton 2020;Reich and Prins 2020). Whereas previous research on the prison as a labor-market institution has focused primarily on the relationship between incarceration and exclusion from the labor market, our work is part of a new literature revisiting the relationship between incarceration and exploitation in the labor market (Smith and Simon 2020).…”

Got Faith? - An in-Depth Analysis and Review of Five Faith-Based Prisoner Reentry Programs in Florida

“…Throughout Western history, both incarcerated and returning inmates from jails and prisons have used religious organizations to adapt and transition back to society (Smith and Simon, 2020). Religious institutions provide a firm structure and allow an inmate to gradually adjust with support through services catered for an easier transition back to society.…”