Abstract
In many jurisdictions, those sentenced to prison may be required to work while in prison. The type of work ranges from menial work, such as clean the institution to private and/or public industrial work, vocational training, and work-release programs. Assumed benefits of prison work include increasing prisoners’ employment opportunities upon release, and reducing recidivism. Some empirical evidence supports these assumptions, although much of the research suffers from methodological problems such as sample-selection bias. Despite potential benefits, prison work has been criticized for exploiting prisoners, not always being a productive use of inmates’ time, and not being rehabilitative.