Work in Prison

Though people living in a prison don’t have to pay rent for their cells or buy the food they are served in the chow hall, I have seen that even in a prison community, work is important. Having a job while doing time can give the daily life of an incarcerated person a greater sense of purpose and order and meaning. And just as play is for children, prison jobs can also be good practice for work outside incarceration and provide a chance to try out new skills, use a variety of tools and learn to resourcefully solve problems alone and with others. 

Though everyone who lives in the prison is wearing a blue work shirt, within the prison workforce there are both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. There are inmate chefs and inmate electricians and painters. There are inmate tutors and secretaries and beauticians and even inmate video production teams. Inmate computer programmers, in fact, developed the program used to track educational progress made by all the adult education students in the state. There are inmates who counsel fellow inmates when they threaten suicide and inmates trained to do hospice care for the dying. Inmates do janitorial services, translation services, and toxic waste removal services. Inmates assist prison chaplains, teachers, doctors, counselors, plumbers, and managers to do their jobs more efficiently. Hundreds of inmates work in the kitchen and dining rooms to provide food for thousands. There are meat cutters, bakers, veggie washers and choppers, fry cooks, pot scrubbers, table wipers, servers, and dish washers.

From the institutional standpoint, it is an understatement to say that inmates provide much of the labor and perform many of the skilled services that help keep the prison running smoothly. But the value of the inmates working goes beyond that. Prison work assignments keep inmates productively occupied and give them the satisfaction of contributing to the community in which they live. For most inmates having a job means time not sleeping or watching a TV on a bunk. It’s time away from the swirling thoughts of worry about families or rage over their helplessness. 

Time in prison is time in a prisoner’s life. When a prisoner has a job in prison, that life has healthy rhythms, social attachments, and learning challenges. A prison job is a training ground to learn the tools to sustain a future life on the streets too—maintaining schedules, working in teams, following instructions, and being accountable, all necessary skills for living successfully beyond the walls.

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