The Consent of the Punished: Toward a Gramscian Theory of Penal Punishment, Labor, and Control

• In Event: 30265 - Labor, Markets and Work in the Criminal-Legal System

Abstract

To function and persist in its current form, the carceral status quo—including, in the U.S., the endurance of mass incarceration and the expanse of state prison labor systems—depends on not only the consent of the governed, but also the consent of the punished. Yet, while processes of consent are multi-faceted and integral to contemporary penality, they remain under-theorized in punishment scholarship, particularly in U.S. contexts. We present a typology of consent processes both external and internal to the American prison to advance a Gramscian theory of penal punishment. We highlight how the actions and outlooks of the dominant and dominated—amongst the incarcerated and the free—coalesce to generate carceral hegemony across multiple levels. We apply this framework in an interpretive revisit of previous ethnographic fieldwork conducted in distinct U.S. prison settings, focused on penal labor. Reinterpreting prior empirical evidence through a Gramscian lens reveals how acquiescence to punitive excess unfolds at macro, meso, and micro levels. Following Gramsci, particular attention is paid to ground-level penal labor practices in this process, including carceral agents’ use of techniques of managerial control as well as imprisoned workers’ practices and rhetorics that reflect and at times unwittingly reinforce tacit consent.

Authors

• Michael Gibson-Light, University of Denver

• Phil Goodman, University of Toronto