Captive in Cycles of Invisibility? Prisoners’ Work for the Private Sector

Introduction

This article critiques prison-work’s rehabilitative potential in a male prison in the UK, Bridgeville, in a context where British prisons are increasingly overcrowded, tense, violent environments and rates of recidivism are high (Ministry of Justice, 2016: 3, 40). The task of providing prisoners with a positive means of re-entry into society is pressing (Ministry of Justice, 2013: 3). In this respect campaigners, scholars and policy-makers generally concur that the design of in-prison-work is crucial. Ideally, its role is to reframe prisoners’ relationship with and perceptions of the possibilities of paid employment to assist their reintegration into society. Thus prison-work should comprise activity in support of attitudinal restructuring to counteract the ‘complicated and generally negative relationship with legitimate employment’ that all too often characterises [prisoners’] pre- and post-prison experiences (Green, 2008: 6; Ministry of Justice, 2013; Shea, 2007). It is generally accepted that in this endeavour, the more closely prison-work resembles real employment outside the prison walls – real work, so called – the greater its rehabilitative potential (Guilbaud and Jacobs, 2010; Silva and Saraiva, 2016; Visher and Travis, 2003; Wakefield and Uggen, 2010).

Real work implies the mutuality of market exchange, for paid labour. In the prison setting, however, there are contentious ethical issues around prisoners’ position as unfree workers who, under the terms of most national institutional frameworks, are forbidden the status of employees as the ‘penal context is portrayed as inhospitable to contract’ (Zatz, 2008: 885). The dilemma is addressed in international law whereby it is held that prison-work’s rehabilitative role legitimates and distinguishes it from economic work or unfree labour (Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR). Prison-work’s purpose is thus crucial for the State’s relationship with working prisoners. In the UK, it is formalised in the Human Rights Act 2000 (see, for example, Prison Reform Trust, 2014). It follows that prison-work is designated non-economic, non-market work, that is work undertaken for purposes other than economic gain – namely, with rehabilitative intent (see Hatton, 2017: 339; Zatz, 2008).

Non-economic work is more broadly devalued in society and such devaluation underpins the concept of invisible work (Daniels, 1987; Hatton, 2015; Zatz, 2008). While originally applied to women’s unpaid labour (Daniels, 1987), the definition of invisible work has come to encompass a wide range of devalued, non-economic, informalised, casualised work in the current labour market (Hatton, 2015, 2017; see also Visser, 2017; Zatz and Boris, 2014). Accordingly, Hatton (2017: 346) has identified and theorised the ‘sociological mechanisms’ of social, economic, cultural, legal and spatial disadvantage that underpin such forms of work. Prison-labour is subject to a particularly comprehensive intersection of Hatton’s (2017) ‘mechanisms of disadvantage’, being spatially segregated, legally excluded from the classification of employment and culturally, socially and economically devalued; thus, on multiple axes, it is a prime example of invisible, non-economic work (see Zatz, 2008). This article explores prisoners’ perceptions of their prison-work’s rehabilitative potential in a context where a one-sided market exchange is present and their non-economic, invisible but nevertheless productive labour at Bridgeville delivers pecuniary benefit for the institution and commercial firms.

The article comprises five main sections. First, prison-work’s status as non-economic, invisible work is reviewed and is placed in its wider context with reference to Hatton’s (2017: 336) framework of mechanisms of invisibility. The second section outlines the research methods employed and the third presents the study’s findings. The majority of Bridgeville respondents did not perceive their prison-work as an introduction to a way to ‘“progress in life” in a way that is legitimized by society’ (Silva and Saraiva, 2016: 371, see also Guilbaud and Jacobs, 2010; Visher and Travis, 2003; Wakefield and Uggen, 2010). Rather, it seemed that their prison-work reinforced for them the undesirability of mundane, low-paid jobs. The significance of prisoners’ negative perceptions of their work is discussed in the fourth section of the article, along with associated insights into the impact of invisible work more generally.

The article’s empirical contribution lies in the insight it affords to prisoners’ response to private-sector prison-work and their perceptions of its rehabilitative potential. It is concluded that Bridgeville’s private-sector prison-work does little to change inmates’ pre-existing perceptions of work and the cyclical ‘logic of exclusion’ associated with criminality (Silva and Saraiva, 2016: 375). Theoretically and more broadly, in tandem with consideration of the findings through the lens of rehabilitation (e.g. Shea, 2007; Silva and Saraiva, 2016; Visher and Travis, 2003; Wakefield and Uggen, 2010), the article problematises ‘[and] make[s] visible a domain of excluded work’ (Zatz and Boris, 2014: 96; also Hatton, 2015, 2017: 346; Zatz, 2008). In so doing, the broader implications of invisible work in the wider labour market are operationalised and exposed to scrutiny, highlighting its deleterious impact on those who labour without meaningful recognition for their efforts, be that dignity in their labour or prospects of economic and social betterment (Hatton, 2015; Standing, 2011; Visser, 2017).

Invisible work, perceptions of rehabilitation and the prisoner

The profile of the typical prison population reveals an undeniable ‘strong social gradient in imprisonment, with people of lower class, income and education much more likely to be sent to prison than people higher up the social scale’ (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010: 148–149). In this respect, the typical prisoner’s experience of socio-economic inequality reflects Hatton’s (2017) mechanisms of invisibility which intersect in various settings to ‘obscure the fact that work is being performed’ (Hatton, 2017: 345). It follows that invisible work is variously, ‘physically out of sight […] ignored or overlooked […] socially marginalized […] economically and/or culturally devalued […] legally unprotected and unregulated […] or some combination thereof’ (Hatton, 2017: 337; see also Daniels, 1987; Zatz, 2008).

As Daniels (1987: 404) observed, being a worker implies ‘a clue to a person’s worth […] recognition of an activity as work gives it a moral force and dignity – something of importance in a society’ (emphasis added). In contrast, despite ‘the embedding of informal labour markets and economic activity within the formal economy’ under the influence of neoliberal economic restructuring (Standing, 2011; Visser, 2017: 785), those who undertake invisible work go unrecognised and may very possibly be stigmatised as ‘the wrong kinds of people living the wrong kinds of lives […] to merit recognition as workers’ (Zatz and Boris, 2014: 104). This judgement is given added poignancy when applied to inmates imprisoned for illicit activity. Typically, by the time they enter prison, they will already have fallen foul of the:

stratifying institutions that sort people into more or less advantaged social categories […] such as the […] educational system […] and the formal labour market […] [which] […] reflect and create inequality by differentially conferring access and opportunity across social groups. (Hatton, 2017; Wakefield and Uggen, 2010: 388; see also Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010)

Whether in response to the typical experience of socio-economic exclusion or as their primary option in life, Bridgeville inmates had pursued economic gain through forms of illicit activity. Thus, their lives were further marked by mechanisms of disadvantage underpinning negative cycles of invisibility associated with criminality, with some 60% of respondents being repeat offenders. Inside prison, the cycle of exclusion persists; as noted, no formal employment relationship can exist between a prisoner and the prison, or indeed an external employer (Zatz, 2008: 885; see also Shea, 2007).

While rehabilitation is thus central to the prisoner’s relationship with the penal institution and the State, its design and implementation is likely to be a resource intensive, costly endeavour (Shea, 2007: 169; see also Crook, 2007). Post-release, statistics on recidivism suggest that ex-offenders will find it extremely difficult to escape the vicious cycle of disadvantage without a changed relationship with employment and a comprehensive system of support (Ministry of Justice, 2013). Such change needs to begin inside the prison, reframing inmates’ perceptions, expectations and relationships with paid work through strategies that minimise the ‘social vulnerability of individuals’ (Silva and Saraiva, 2016: 369) rather than compounding it. Rehabilitative potential is maximised by non-exploitative, well-designed programmes of work for real employers, where prisoners are paid a meaningful wage, learn social responsibility, perhaps pay reparations to victims and are encouraged to develop a sense of self-worth and reframe their relationship with employment (e.g. Crook, 2007; Shea, 2007). Thus the meaning prisoners’ attribute to their prison-work has attendant implications for their successful reintegration into society (Silva and Saraiva, 2016, see also Visher and Travis, 2003).

It follows that if an inmate is given concrete experiences that underpin their imagining of a passage between ‘priso[n] and the economic world’ (Guilbaud and Jacobs, 2010: 43; see also Crook, 2007; Green, 2008; Shea, 2007) it may allow them to envision work beyond prison as a mechanism of redemption (Silva and Saraiva, 2016: 371). A prisoner’s perception of their own ability and belief in their self-efficacy is also essential (Maruna, 2001) and it is important for prison-work to give the inmate a sense that they are ‘capable of achieving something’ (Crook, 2007: 304, emphasis added) and to feel that it is more than simply a way of filling ‘gaping time’ (Guilbaud and Jacobs, 2010: 42). If, however, prison-work simply reflects and reinforces prisoners’ pre-existing negative experiences and attitudes to work (see Silva and Saraiva, 2016; Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010: 148–149) and fails to provide a vision of new, realistic possibilities, it may be little more than an adjunct to the mechanisms that ‘produce and reproduce disadvantage for workers’ (see Hatton, 2017: 336). In this case, it may serve only to ‘reinforce negative attitudes’ (Crook, 2007: 305; Silva and Saraiva, 2016).

In this context, the present article asks how private-sector prison-work functions for the prison inmate and how they perceive it as a rehabilitative tool. Is it simply a means of ‘killing time’ on the inside (Guilbaud and Jacobs, 2010: 52–53) or does it provide an alternative vision of reintegration into society? The following section explains the methods employed in the study.

Research methods

Bridgeville is a male category B/C private prison in the UK and was assigned its pseudonym in the interests of anonymity, as were all participants in the study. The fieldwork was undertaken by a single researcher ¹ over a 10-month period in 2012–2013. Bridgeville was initially approached for access because of its status as a private-sector prison which contracts with commercial firms in the provision of in-prison-work for inmates. It is designated a working prison, whereby the provision of work for prisoners is a central element of its contract with the State. Negotiating access was a lengthy and complex process which took over a year to agree. During this period there was a need to establish trust with the prison management acting as gatekeeper, while accommodating the ‘perpetual risk of rejection’ (Peticca-Harris et al., 2016: 377). Once agreed, access to the institution was extensive and the researcher was even provided with her own set of prison keys.

Bridgeville provided inmates with a range of ‘traditional’ prison-work in laundries and kitchens – the sort of work that Zatz (2008: 870) has termed ‘prison-housework’. In the prison industries department, however, five workshops contracted prison-labour to seven local commercial firms. As the research objective was to understand prisoners’ perceptions of their market-focused prison-work, fieldwork was conducted in the ‘private-sector’ workshops, shown in Table 1.

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Table 1.

Bridgeville prison Workshops 1–5: Activities and patterns of work.

Prison workshop	Commercial firm(s) sub-contracting work to Bridgeville	Typical work tasks and activities for prisoners
1	CrashCo	Breaking up electrical items for recycling
	ElectroWire	Packing rubber coated electrical wires
2	Booksmart	Packing and shrink-wrapping books, applying stickers to parcels, quality checking
3	Partpro Pullem	Wrapping straps through a plastic case, rolling and packing them. Repackaging small car parts and applying stickers to them
4	Flushco	Assembling and repackaging different components of household plumbing, such as lavatory flushes
5	Waste Management	Collecting bins throughout the prison, separating the waste into recyclable groups and using an industrial baling machine

Workshops 1–4 were identical in structure, each comprising 35 prisoners supervised by two instructors. Here, there was a relatively high ratio of prisoners to instructors, at 17:1. Workshop 5, Waste Management, also had two instructors but was much smaller, comprising 12 prisoners, all of whom held enhanced status, meaning that they had qualified for certain privileges due to consistent good behaviour. Here, the prisoner to instructor ratio was 6:1. Each workshop offered basic National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) at levels 1 and 2 in aspects of recycling, waste management, manual handling and manufacturing operations. The jobs prisoners undertook in Workshops 1–4 were monotonous, very low skilled and subject to fluctuating demand. In Workshop 5, while the work was relatively low skilled, involved handling all manner of prison waste and was ‘dirty’, it was more varied than that available in Workshops 1–4, generally allowed prisoners a little more responsibility and autonomy and there was stable demand.

An ethnographic approach was adopted, with the aim of developing depth and detail of understanding. The focus on a single institution was driven by the need to accommodate the transient nature of prison populations. It was intended that by studying one site in depth, resources and time could be better focused in gaining detailed understanding of the regime and speaking to as many prisoners as possible. This approach was in keeping with ethnographic studies of prison life where ‘depth of analysis and richness of detail take precedent over breadth’ (Crewe, 2009: 3).

The research began with a six-month period of observing prisoners in the workshops, using a daily research diary. Some of the observation was unambiguously non-participant but there were also times when the researcher undertook some of the prison-work activities alongside prisoners. Even when participating in workshop activity, it is recognised that as a female in a male environment who was free to come and go, this did not constitute participant observation but was rather interaction that promoted rapport with respondents and also facilitated greater understanding of their prison-work. Informal, unstructured interaction with prison instructors and prisoners took place during this initial six-month phase of research and was important in allowing the researcher to be immersed in the nuances of workshop life before interviews with prisoners began.

In total, 40 semi-structured interviews were conducted with inmates working in Workshops 1–5. Thirty-four respondents worked in Workshops 1–4 while six came from Workshop 5. It was explained to prisoners that their participation was voluntary, though the ethical complexity of ensuring voluntary participation when interviewing a particularly vulnerable group is recognised. Most inmates were enthusiastic interviewees, often explaining that they were grateful for the opportunity to escape from the workshops. Such positive engagement has been noted in other prison studies, where inmates are welcoming of an external observer being interested in them (Guilbaud and Jacobs, 2010: 45). At Bridgeville, only a small number of prisoners exercised their right to decline participation. All interviews were digitally recorded and ranged from 20 to 90 minutes in length.

Inmate interviewees ranged from 18 to 56 years of age and were serving sentences from one to eight years. The opportunity to observe and interview prisoners while imprisoned allowed for the documentation of their perceptions of prison-work in real time, while their experience was current. Interviews were also undertaken with prison workshop instructors, representatives of Bridgeville prison management and two firms contracting prison-work to Bridgeville. Interview data and field notes were inductively coded and analysed after being broken down into identifiable, themed subsets (Creswell, 1998). As Miles and Huberman (1994) emphasise, data analysis such as this is not linear and involves reflection and repetition, as many of the emerging themes were interrelated.

It is recognised that in a male prison, the willingness of some prisoners to engage with the research may have been influenced by the opportunity to interact with a woman. Inevitably, the research process raised issues of gender and identity. A full debate of such issues lies beyond the scope of the present article. Suffice it to note that the researcher was acutely aware of her position as a woman in an exclusively male setting. The researcher’s personal safety was regularly reviewed and Peticca-Harris et al.’s (2016: 378, 382) description of the negotiation of access as an ‘ongoing and fluid process’ is apt in this context. The lead researcher consulted regularly with her co-authors, reflecting on her status vis-a-vis the prisoner respondents (as well as in the reading and interpretation of the data) and ‘re-strategizing’ (Peticca-Harris et al., 2016: 392) took place at numerous stages throughout the fieldwork. For example, two respondents needed to be excluded from interviews after making comments such as ‘does this mean that we get to be alone in a room?’ to the researcher. Fortunately, such problems were rare and the 10-month period of fieldwork allowed strong relationships to evolve. Ethnographic approaches facilitate such flexibility and the overwhelming majority of inmates were respectful and appeared comfortable with the researcher’s presence in the workshop, though it was particularly important to manage boundaries of formality, trust and informality with skill. To this end, the main (and effective) strategy employed in relating to prisoners as respondents was to behave towards them with respect and courtesy, eschewing informal familiarity.

Respondents were subject to varying degrees of vulnerability and the issue of informed consent demands attention. Writing of covert participation, Roulet et al. (2017: 488) highlight potential ethical issues and deceptions relating to ‘conducting research without participants’ fully informed consent’. They analyse the complexity of consent along two dimensions, first the breadth of consent – who knows the researcher’s purpose – and second, the depth of consent, that is what is known of the research purpose and the extent to which it is fully understood by participants (Roulet et al., 2017: 498). At Bridgeville, care was taken to explain the study as an investigation of the nature of privatised prison-work, yet it is possible that the managers who granted access may have assumed (perhaps based on the researcher’s business school credentials) that she was less concerned with sociological enquiry than she was with prison-work as a process of value-creation within and for the institution. Similarly, while prisoners knew the researcher quite well by the end of the study, they may not have fully appreciated the weight being given to their perceptions of prison-work for their prospects of re-entry into society. Thus, while the researcher was open with all participants about the terms of the study, it is acknowledged that, based on Roulet et al.’s (2017) framework, respondents’ depth of consent may have been less well founded.

It is recognised that as a single case the Bridgeville study cannot make claims to generalisability, nevertheless it is contended that it illuminates and is relatable to the ‘totality that shapes it’ (Burawoy, 1985: 18) when viewed in its wider societal context. Thus, perceptions of prison-work at Bridgeville were compared with results from other prison studies (e.g. Guilbaud and Jacobs, 2010; Shea, 2007; Silva and Saraiva, 2016; Visher and Travis, 2003), while also engaging with wider labour market controversies around the boundaries of economic work and structures of social disadvantage (Hatton, 2015, 2017; Zatz, 2008; Zatz and Boris, 2014).

The following section presents the research findings in five sub-sections. First, Bridgeville’s approach to prison-work is explained and prisoners’ employment histories are briefly described. The following two sub-sections detail inmates’ perceptions of prison-work in Workshops 1–5 in their own words, beginning with the generally negative perceptions of those working in Workshops 1–4. Here, prison-work was regarded primarily as a coping mechanism to fill time and socialise, while in Workshop 5, Waste Management, inmates were more positive and could envision a route into employment through their prison-work. The final two sub-sections expand on the frustration prisoners in Workshops 1–4 expressed towards prison-work they regarded as ‘kid’s work’ and their aspiration for more challenging activities.

Cycles of invisibility: The prisoner and prison-work in the private prison

Discussion

The rehabilitative intent of prison-work is key to this article, as it defines the boundary between non-economic, invisible work inside prison and market-work on the outside. The research findings provide contrasting results from different workshops undertaking private-sector work at Bridgeville. The majority of respondents in Workshops 1–4 did not perceive their prison-work for commercial firms as a rehabilitative bridge to social and economic inclusion. Arguably, their prison-work reflected the contemporary ‘fragmented landscape of work’ (Hatton, 2015: 1008) which they had already rejected in favour of more lucrative, perhaps more exciting, illicit activity (see Crook, 2007). In this context, their vision of an alternative future was not sparked by prison-work that spoke only of the low pay, poor training and insecurity of marginalised, invisible work (Visser, 2017: 783; see also Wakefield and Uggen, 2010: 387). Although prison-work alone can be no panacea for wider social problems (Silva and Saraiva, 2016: 375), the work assigned to inmates in Workshops 1–4 failed to bridge the boundary between legal non-economic work inside prison and an imagining of lawful economic work post-release. Rather, these inmates saw their prison-work as temporary respite from the cell, a coping mechanism, but little more (see Guilbaud and Jacobs, 2010). In Workshops 1–4, therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that prison-work reinforced inmates’ negative histories of socio-economic disadvantage (Crook, 2007; Hatton, 2017; Silva and Saraiva, 2016).

Contrastingly, inmates from Workshop 5 displayed awareness of a growing external labour market in recycling and waste management (Harvey, 2013) which, alongside work that they found more skilled and intrinsically rewarding, facilitated positive perceptions of a changed relationship with work. The words of prisoner Anthony are instructive here, in that he said he had had ‘nothing’ in his previous life, testifying to a history of exclusion and social disadvantage. His work experience in Workshop 5 gave him the sense that he could do something (see Crook, 2007). It would be stretching the analysis to see the inmate responses discussed in this article as a broader indication of acceptance of the economic benefits of market work or neoliberal values but it does perhaps say something about the beneficial effects of skills development and self-esteem in Workshop 5 inmates. It is possible that through such self-affirmation they glimpsed the possibilities of change in their lives, of attaining the respect afforded to ‘a working kind of person’ in wider society (Zatz and Boris, 2014: 102; see also Maruna, 2001; Silva and Saraiva, 2016).

In broader terms, through the words of Bridgeville prisoners, intersecting debates over the nature and meaning of work and the purpose of prison-work become apparent. As Zatz (2008: 884) notes, where work is undertaken at the boundaries of the market, as in this case, there is potential to illuminate ‘the continuity between controversies previously regarded as distinct’. Scholarship on non-economic work (Zatz, 2008) and consideration of mechanisms of invisibility (Hatton, 2015, 2017) thus strengthens the insights that emerge from the rehabilitation literature (e.g. Crook, 2007; Guilbaud and Jacobs, 2010; Shea, 2007; Silva and Saraiva, 2016; Visher and Travis, 2003). In particular, the multiple layers of disadvantage and exclusion experienced by prisoners are brought into sharp relief.

It is somewhat contradictory, perhaps, that the exclusion of prisoners is perpetuated by the ‘rehabilitative rather than pecuniary’ interests (Zatz, 2008: 889) that define its non-economic status (Hatton, 2017: 339; Zatz, 2008). It follows that in socio-legal terms, prisoners’ work activities are ‘not classified as “jobs” at all’ (Hatton, 2017: 346), even where undertaken for private-sector employers, as at Bridgeville. With this exclusion in mind, reference to Hatton’s (2017: 339) mechanisms of disadvantage illuminate the social, spatial and economic exclusion Bridgeville inmates experience as part of their life’s pattern. Their experience of employment outside prison was subject to mechanisms of social, economic and cultural disadvantage that consigned them to marginalised, devalued work or their chosen alternative of illicit activity – each no more than a variation of invisibility related to mechanisms of disadvantage (Hatton, 2017: 339; see also Visser, 2017; Zatz, 2008). Such personal histories then become highly influential for invisible work inside prison, colouring workshop instructors’ expectations of inmates’ potential and consigning the majority to highly repetitive, low-skilled, low-paid activity. The cycle of exclusion is thus perpetuated. In this respect, reference to Hatton’s (2017: 339) mechanisms of invisibility, highlights the negative cycle that captures Bridgeville inmates as they transition from one manifestation of invisibility to another – either from marginalised invisible work or ‘illicit’ invisible activity to ‘non-economic’ invisible prison-work. Once released, the cycle will, for many, begin again as there seemed to be little in the majority of inmates’ experiences of prison-work that changed their perceptions of the possible.

More broadly, the deleterious effects of prison-work that fails to provide an image of future economic and social inclusion through work have implications beyond the prison walls, precisely because the work subcontracted to Bridgeville was real work being done, no doubt, by similarly invisible workers hidden within the labour market. Such a realisation highlights the fact that the designation of work implies ‘dignity and respect but also signals the possibility of subordination and exploitation’ (Zatz and Boris, 2014: 96). In the external labour market being recognised as a ‘worker’ implies an exchange of benefits encompassing social status and economic inclusion (Zatz and Boris, 2014). However, for stigmatised pools of labour subject to multiple mechanisms of disadvantage the market exchange may be grossly unfavourable (Visser, 2017: 787). In the words of Bridgeville prisoners it is possible to see, in detail, the deleterious implications of performing invisible work, albeit lawfully, at the margins of the market.

Conclusion

This article asked the question of how prisoners experience prison-work as a rehabilitative tool. Its contribution is two-fold, in that it provides empirical data on prisoners’ concrete experience and emotional response to their prison-labour, while also affording theoretical insights into cycles of disadvantage associated with the prison-work boundary and the devalued status of invisible work in society more generally. In terms of prison-work’s purpose, the study of Bridgeville highlights the crucial importance of work design for its rehabilitative potential. Where prisoners were assigned tasks which developed some level of skill and self-belief, as in Workshop 5, inmates could envision a future of work that promised some form of economic and social inclusion. In contrast, where work was so degraded that such a vison was absent, as in Bridgeville Workshops 1–4, the lack of opportunity for social and economic betterment through work means that the subordination and exploitation of devalued, non-economic work is stripped bare. Here, the cycle of exclusion rolls on. In broader terms, such insights highlight the failures of work for invisible workers who labour for meagre rewards, without status, rights or respect, not only within but beyond the prison walls.