How Unregulated Is the U.S. Labor Market? The Penal System as a Labor Market Institution
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7611269 |
|---|---|
| Authors | B Western (0000-0001-8615-6767, Princeton University), Katherine Beckett (0000-0002-5523-087X, Indiana University) |
| Year | 1999 |
| Volume | 104 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1030-1060 |
| Publication date | 1999-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-9602 • E-ISSN: 1537-5390 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/210135 |
| OpenAlex | W2088253486 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 237 |
| References cited | 33 |
Comparative research contrasts the corporatist welfare states of Europe with the unregulated U.S. labor market to explain low rates of U.S. unemployment in the 1980s and 1990s. In contrast, this article argues that the U.S. state made a large and coercive intervention into the labor market through the expansion of the penal system. The impact of incarceration on unemployment has two conflicting dynamics. In the short run, U.S. incarceration lowers conventional unemployment measures by removing able‐bodied, working‐age men from labor force counts. In the long run, social survey data show that incarceration raises unemployment by reducing the job prospects of ex‐convicts. Strong U.S. employment performance in the 1980s and 1990s has thus depended in part on a high and increasing incarceration rate
Economic growth · Economics · Institution · Labour economics · Market economy · Political science · Unemployment · Welfare · Welfare state · Welfare system · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
Changing cartographies of health in a globalizing world
Punishing Immigrants
Institutional Castling
Working to Avoid Incarceration
A Wealth of Inequalities
Level of Criminal Justice Contact and Early Adult Wage Inequality
Exclusion and Extraction
Lest we forget thee
Velvet Glove, Iron Fist, or Even Hand? Protest Policing in the United States, 1960-1990
Megan's Law
Policing Social Marginality
Criminal Punishment, Labor Market Outcomes, and Economic Inequality
Cárceles Privadas
La persistente importancia de las clases
Exchange, Action, and Social Structure
Resisting Homelessness
Do Affluent Countries Face an Incomes-Jobs Trade-Off
Reintegrating women leaving jail into urban communities
Narrative im Justizvollzug. Identitäten von Mitarbeitenden, medialer Diskurs und historischer Kontext
Orange-Collar Labor
The Prisoners' Dilemma
Asset Manager Capitalism as a Corporate Governance Regime
The Effect of Incarceration on Marriage and Work Over the Life Course
Coercive mobility and crime
Labeling and Cumulative Disadvantage
Das „europäische Sozialmodell” und die USA
The Role of the Law in the American Political Economy
Labour Market Regimes Under Threat? Sources of Continuity in Germany, Britain, and Sweden
Welfare State and Production Regimes in the Era of Retrenchment
Political Institutions and Welfare State Restructuring
Who Pays for Health Care Reform?
Partisan Competition and Welfare State Retrenchment
The Comparative Political Economy of Pension Reform
The Political Economy of Social Pacts
Round Up the Usual Suspects!
Political Institutions, Veto Points, and the Process of Welfare State Adaptation
Post‐Industrial Pressures on the Mature Welfare States
The New Politics of the Welfare State
Comparative Institutional Advantages of Welfare State Regimes and New Coalitions in Welfare State Reforms
The Dynamics of Welfare State Expansion
Coping With Permanent Austerity Welfare State Restructuring in Affluent Democracies
The Political Economies of Red States
The Politics of Economic Inequality
The American Political Economy
Same as it Never Was
Inequitable access to sport in juvenile justice across the USA
Converging on the Poles
Jails, prisons, and the health of urban populations
Searching for Work with a Criminal Record
The More You Have, The More You Lose
Invisible Men
The Current Crisis of American Criminal Justice
Love after lockup
The health effects of gendered and devalued work
“An Enormous Amount of Human Waste”
Criminal History, Sex, and Employment
How Jailed Mothers Envision Future Motherhood in the Context of State Intrusion
The Long-Term Incarceration Consequences of Coming-of-Age in a Crime Boom
Spiegare le variazioni della politica sociale e penale con il principio di less eligibility
Advocating for an Incarcerated Informed Lens in Therapy
Pathways to second chances
The racial implications of the effects of parental incarceration on intergenerational mobility
Converging on the Poles
Educational Attainment, Teacher-Student Ratios, and the Risk of Adult Incarceration Among U.S. Birth Cohorts Since 1910
Reconsidering the Relationship between Incarceration, Trust in the State, Community Engagement, and Civic Participation
Erasing the Mark of a Criminal Record
Pathways to Skin Color Stratification
Unintended Consequences
Prison, Coerced Demand, and the Importance of Incarcerated Bodies in Late Capitalism
Milwaukee's Disregarded Population
Authoritarianism and the precariat
A Relational Theory of Inequality in the Criminal Legal System
Institutional competitiveness in the global economy
The Origins of Mass Incarceration
Who Benefits from Mass Incarceration? A Stratification Economics Approach to the “Collateral Consequences” of Punishment
Racial Innocence
Commerce with Criminals
Criminal background check laws and labor market inequality in the United States
On cash and conviction
Effect of Electronic Monitoring on Social Welfare Dependence
Homeless Shelter Use and Reincarceration Following Prison Release
Neoliberalism, criminal justice and Latinos
When work is punishment
Race, crime, and forprofit imprisonment
Theoretical advances and problems in the sociology of punishment
Decarceration and its possible effects on inmates, staff, and communities
Whither neoliberal penality? The past, present and future of imprisonment in the US
Novus Ordo Saeclorum
Extraction without reserve
The Causes and Consequences of Prison Growth in the United States
Lesson‐drawing in family policy
Twin towers, iron cages and the culture of control
Laziness or liberation? Labor market policies and workers' attitudes toward employment flexibility
Neoliberalism’s penal and debtor states
The Environmental Paradox of the Welfare State
Constructing the rapist
Male Nonemployment in White, Black, Hispanic, and Multiethnic Urban Neighborhoods, 1970−2000
Father Absence and Youth Incarceration
Introduction
Get to Work or Go to Jail
Internal labor markets and manpower analysis
Time series analysis
Crime in the making
The decline of organized labor in the United States
Punishment and Social Structure
What Went Wrong? The Erosion of Relative Earnings and Employment Among Young Black Men in the 1980s
Bargaining Structure, Corporatism and Macroeconomic Performance
The Rise and Decline of Nations
Social Protection vs. Economic Flexibility
Politics in hard times
Punishment and Social Structure
Crime and Social Justice
Analysis of Panel Data
Malign Neglect Race, Crime, And Punishment In America
The Effect of Arrests on the Employment and Earnings of Young Men
Economic Action and Social Structure
Research and Methodology
The Political Economy of Unemployment
An exploration of the determinants of labor market performance for prison releasees
Welfare States and Employment Regimes
The Interaction of Welfare States and Labor Markets
Openness for Prosperity
Police Productivity and Crime Rates
Postrelease Depression and the Importance of Familial Support
Does Conviction Affect Employment Opportunities
Political and Economic Explanations for Unemployment
Great Transformation
Two Studies of Legal Stigma
Spillover, standardization and stratification
| Unique citing works | 237 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 8,78 |
| Citation span | 1999 - 2026 (28) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 220 |