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In the past two decades, the prison population has increased considerably in many industrialized countries. In the United States, for example, the prison population has more than quadrupled since 1980. As a response to the considerable incarceration costs, the number of private prisons and the number of prisoners working for private corporations have increased significantly. Proponents of private sector involvement in prison industries argue that inmate labour can reduce the incarceration costs and contribute to rehabilitation of prisoners. / The question of private sector involvement in prison facilities raises significant concerns as regards to international labour standards. Opponents of private sector involvement argue that private hiring of prison labour can involve exploitation. They also argue that the authority for punishment is a core governmental function that cannot be delegated to the private sector. Furthermore, in most cases, labour and social security laws are not applied to inmates. Therefore, prison labour can constitute unfair competition with free labour or even go as far as to replace free labour.

Sociologists of punishment generally agree that the American prison exacerbates social inequality, but the mechanisms by which it does so remain somewhat fuzzy. This thesis pulls from the tradition of Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), a canonical theorist of power and inequality, and specifically his three "thinking tools" of field, capital, and habitus, to unveil these mechanisms. Empirically, I turn to ethnographic data I collected in a minimum-security men's prison that is generally reserved for convicts who will be released to one of the three most populated counties in Oregon. I explore how soon-to-be-released prisoners (i.e., prisoners who will be released within six months) understand and prepare for their exit. Data suggest most prisoners approaching release want to adopt an honest working class style of living, and that many take proactive steps they perceive as likely to increase their chances of accessing this lifestyle (sometimes called the "straight life"). However, I argue that any (re)integrative potential emerging from these conscious and interest-oriented strategies are at risk of being trumped by two processes I title "capital erosion" and "habitus adjustment." I frame these as unintended, but nevertheless strong, consequences of imprisonment. Ultimately, I suggest imprisonment worsens existing patterns of inequality by means of draining power from the nearly powerless and disintegrating the poorly integrated.

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