ABSTRACT
This chapter examines three forms of work either mandated or administered within the criminal justice or welfare systems in the UK: prison labour, “workfare” and unpaid work as part of a sentence. Although acknowledging that they have long histories and differing rationales, it examines their development since the coalition government came to power in 2010, discussing the links between them in the subsequent policy trajectories that have followed. Utilizing the analysis within Crimes of the Powerful, it examines the role of these labour forms as a labour force and argues that doing so reveals something about the contemporary “real,” as opposed to “imagined,” social order.
