Jon Burnett, Work and the Carceral State (London: Pluto Press, 2022)

Jon Burnett’s book “critically examines the role of work in sites of state confinement, demonstrating the ways carceral labour is involved in their material and ideological reproduction” and “examines the work of the carceral state, exploring its role in maintaining and reproducing particular forms of social order.” (15-16) He argues that prison labour is malleable as it “can be imbued with different meanings” and can “reconcile different interests and broader contradictions in the idea of punishment itself.” (2) For instance, proponents of a punitive prison regime will champion hard labour as a means to achieve this, whereas proponents of rehabilitation will argue that prison labour is a key to reintegration within society upon release.

Although much prior research tackles labour and punishment, Burnett’s approach is innovative. The author focuses on the case of England and Wales since 2010 and illuminates global and racial dynamics at play, especially the relationship between capitalism and colonialism. He examines how prison labour is propelled by claims of labour market integration (assimilation) while being integrated into institutions that are designed to expulse: adult and youth prisons, immigrant detention centers, and the wider carceral state, which has expanded far beyond those walls. He shows that work is deployed to manage and remove surplus populations so as to uphold social order.

In Chapter 1, Burnett explores the political and ideological factors behind the Conservative government’s efforts to reform the criminal-legal system since 2010. Drawing on liberal notions of reform, this government has emphasized incarceration as a type of social policy; the discussion on prison labour was central to this recalibration as it was put forth as a means for incarcerated people to make use of their time. At the same time, this government has pushed for blunt forms of criminalization of those designated as indicative of a “social breakdown,” (29) namely poor and marginalized populations, thus undermining its claims of enabling social policy. Chapter 2 follows the same period but focuses on the remodelling of the immigration detention estate. Within this institution, which claims to facilitate deportation, labour is also embedded, this time to maintain the institution. For instance, only the “best and brightest” (48) immigrants whose skilled labour will contribute to the nation are welcome, while hostile environment policies aim to push other less skilled immigrants into leaving voluntarily. Both chapters show how work in and the work of the carceral state contribute to assimilation and expulsion.

Chapter 3 is a counter-history showing how labour and punishment have always been entwined in England and Wales, for instance, through transportation to penal colonies in the context of colonial expansion. Burnett posits that these histories haunt the present convergence of punishment and labour. Indeed, the current intersection of punitive and liberal measures and their enactment in labour is simply a reimagination of a classic combination. Further, British colonialism created the conditions enabling today’s migratory movements, which are now controlled through the immigration detention estate.

The last two chapters draw on 29 qualitative interviews with people who worked while detained and with former prison officers, as well as data obtained through freedom of information requests. Through this data, Chapter 4 offers a ground-up analysis from 2010 on. Beyond the gap between policy and practice, this chapter illuminates the will to reconceptualize prisons as labour market institutions. Burnett shows how labour was put forth in prison reform and highlights attempts to expand the market for such labour, both in the public and private sectors. This chapter starts to expose the role of carceral labour in reproducing the carceral state, and Chapter 5 expands upon this by positing that carceral institutions are labour control regimes. Labour is shown to reproduce order within these institutions, as employment and unemployment are part of an incentive system designed to pacify detainees. Terrible incarceration conditions create a hunger for distraction and a need for income to fulfill basic needs; thus, a willing and infinite labour force is created. Workers cannot organize against unsafe working conditions and tiny salaries as they are instantly replaced. This creates prime market conditions for industries that are already accustomed to exploitation, such as the recycling and hotel laundry industries.

This book’s strength resides in its diversity in scope, sources, and concepts. Indeed, Burnett avoids two pitfalls: treating incarceration as localized exclusively within the criminal-legal system and treating incarcerated populations as a monolith undifferentiated by class, gender, race, and nationality. The author relies on many primary and secondary sources, from qualitative interviews and freedom of information requests to official sources, media coverage, and academic literature. This enables him to offer both a macro- and micro-level analysis of the subject matter. This analysis is further sustained by the conceptual richness of this book, which cites classic concepts pertaining to labour and punishment as well as more recent advances. The author also draws upon scholarship across disciplinary boundaries, such as political science, history, geography, sociology, criminology, and Black and gender studies. The book thus formulates a theoretical contribution that will reach far beyond England and Wales.

This book’s strength is also its shortcoming: parsimony, methodological clarity, and readability are sacrificed in favour of conceptual richness. The research scope is so broad and involves so many concepts that the hierarchy between central and peripheral arguments is difficult to follow. The methodological note did not mention how primary and secondary data were analyzed and how theoretical insights came to be developed. The author used an overly convoluted syntax at times and nodded to many concepts without systematically defining them, making this book more appropriate for prison scholars and other academics than for students, activists, or other laypeople. The latter is unfortunate, as the book concludes with abolitionist insights and calls for labour movements and struggles to show solidarity with incarcerated workers.

Alexis Marcoux Rouleau

Université de Montréal

DOI: https://doi.org/10.52975/llt.2023v91.0023.