Work requirements backed by threats of incarceration offer a fertile but neglected site for sociolegal inquiry. These “carceral work mandates” confound familiar accounts of both the neoliberal state’s production of precarious work through deregulation and the penal state’s production of racialized exclusion from labor markets. In two illustrative contexts—child support enforcement and criminal legal debt—demands for work emerge as efforts to increase and then seize earnings from indigent debtors; an ability to pay is defined to include an ability to work. In a third, demands for work are imposed directly through probation, parole, and other community supervision. In each context, the carceral state regulates work outside of prison. It defines appropriate labor conditions through concepts of voluntary unemployment, and it enables employers to discipline or retaliate against workers by triggering state violence. Additionally, mandated work may be removed from employment law protections when the carceral context dominates its sociolegal meaning. Finally, the resulting vulnerable workforces can be used to displace or discipline other workers not personally subject to carceral work mandates. Analogies to welfare work requirements, workplace immigration enforcement, and prison labor illustrate these points. Implications are considered for theorizing contemporary racial political economy.

中文翻译：

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上班还是坐牢：国家暴力和不稳定工作的种族化生产

以监禁威胁为后盾的工作要求为社会法律调查提供了肥沃但被忽视的场所。这些“监狱工作任务”混淆了人们熟悉的关于新自由主义国家通过放松管制生产不稳定工作和刑罚国家生产种族排斥劳动力市场的说法。在两个说明性的背景下——子女抚养费执法和刑事法律债务——随着努力增加并从贫困债务人那里获取收入而出现工作需求；支付能力被定义为包括工作能力。在第三种情况下，工作要求是通过缓刑、假释和其他社区监督直接施加的。在每种情况下，监狱州都对监狱外的工作进行监管。它通过自愿失业的概念定义适当的劳动条件，它使雇主能够通过引发国家暴力来惩戒或报复工人。此外，当监狱环境支配其社会法律意义时，强制性工作可能会从就业法保护中删除。最后，由此产生的弱势劳动力可用于取代或惩戒其他个人不受监狱工作任务约束的工人。福利工作要求、工作场所移民执法和监狱劳工的类比说明了这些观点。对当代种族政治经济学理论化的影响被考虑在内。由此产生的弱势劳动力可被用来取代或惩戒其他不受拘禁工作任务约束的工人。福利工作要求、工作场所移民执法和监狱劳工的类比说明了这些观点。对当代种族政治经济学理论化的影响被考虑在内。由此产生的弱势劳动力可被用来取代或惩戒其他不受拘禁工作任务约束的工人。福利工作要求、工作场所移民执法和监狱劳工的类比说明了这些观点。对当代种族政治经济学理论化的影响被考虑在内。