Unemployment, Crime and Imprisonment

Abstract

Even a cursory examination of the emergence of the prison leaves little doubt that the form of labour, the operation of the labour market, and labour discipline have played a critical role in shaping its development and its functioning. But it has been suggested by Georg Rusche (1978) that the use of the prison may be conditioned not only by the form of labour but also by the level of unemployment. Following the lead of Rusche, a number of other sociologists have hypothesised that the use of imprisonment, as well as the severity of punishment, will increase during periods of rising unemployment and deepening recession (Jancovic, 1977). These two related hypotheses have been explored at length by criminologists, although the predominant focus has been on the changing size of the prison population rather than the possible relation between unemployment and penal austerity (Sparks, 1996).