Prisoners' work in prison : the meaning and arrangement of time as experienced by imprisoned workers

The practical and symbolic social effects of work on how imprisoned persons relate to time is studied here from a labor Sociology perspective. In the thinking of Donald Clemmer and Erving Goffman, two classic sociologists of the prison, the unity of the confined prison space goes together with it unity of time. But in direct opposition to these approaches, the findings of a field study conducted in five French prisons suggests that the private life/occupational life split characteristic of wage-paid labor is also relevant for the lives of incarcerated workers. The work they do enhances prison security. For the imprisoned workers themselves it is a major means reappropriating space and time in a context of freedom-deprivation. Prison labor is analyzed as a means of socialization within a continuum of prisoners' past work-lives.