{"product_id":"inside-jobs-adam-reich-9780871548542","title":"Inside Jobs: Prison Work in the Making of the American Labor Market","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom the stone quarries of Sing Sing that supplied marble for early New York City landmarks, to twenty-first-century construction projects staffed by formerly incarcerated workers, \u003ci\u003eInside Jobs\u003c\/i\u003e traces the relationship between prison work and the labor market over the past two hundred years. Sociologist Adam Reich demonstrates how prison labor has repeatedly been used to solve economic problems--disciplining workers, lowering labor costs, managing unemployment--revealing unexpected connections that challenge our assumptions about freedom, coercion, and labor itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eReich examines the history of work in prisons to understand how it has related to the free labor market. He finds that the organization of prison work, and debates over it, have changed dramatically over time. In the mid to late nineteenth century, prisons helped shape the emerging factory system as the apprentice-based labor market gave way to industrial production. Labor unions opposed prison labor as immoral, and in the early to mid-twentieth century, the moral character of the workforce became central to economic life within the prison and without. Therapeutic professionals worked in prisons to rehabilitate the incarcerated and determine what motivated them to work. Following prison uprisings in the late twentieth century, prison work became a tool of population control. Yet, paradoxically, work programs were remodeled to mirror the free labor market, requiring applications and hiring processes. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBlending archival research, political economy, and sociological theory, \u003ci\u003eInside Jobs\u003c\/i\u003e offers a powerful new framework for understanding mass incarceration and reentry today. Reich examines how the dynamics of mass incarceration have begun to shift. He explores how the \"mark of a criminal record\"--the stigma traditionally associated with felony convictions--has given way to a \"market\" for criminal records, as employers discover advantages in hiring disadvantaged, dependent, and disciplined workers recently released from prison. Looking toward the future, Reich focuses on promising efforts to transform this system.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eInside Jobs\u003c\/i\u003e is an illuminating examination of prison work's history, its relationship to work outside prison walls, and how the criminal justice system disempowers workers both behind bars and beyond.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Adam Reich\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0871548542\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780871548542\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Russell Sage Foundation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/24\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 228\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback","brand":"Adam Reich","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48659727286527,"sku":"9780871548542","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/inside-jobs-adam-reich-9780871548542","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}