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Prison Labor: The Price of Prisons and the Lasting Effects of Incarceration

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  • Belinda Archibong
  • Nonso Obikili

Abstract

Institutions of justice, like prisons, can be used to serve economic and other extrajudicial interests, with lasting deleterious effects. We study the effects on incarceration when prisoners are primarily used as a source of labor using evidence from British colonial Nigeria. We digitized 65 years of archival records on prisons from 1920 to 1995 and provide new estimates on the value of colonial prison labor and the effects of labor demand shocks on incarceration. We find that prison labor was economically valuable to the colonial regime, making up a significant share of colonial public works expenditure. Positive economic shocks increased incarceration rates over the colonial period. This result is reversed in the postcolonial period, where prison labor is not a notable feature of state public finance. We document a significant reduction in present-day trust in legal institutions, such as the police, in areas with high historical exposure to colonial imprisonment; the resulting reduction in trust is specific to legal institutions.

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  • Belinda Archibong & Nonso Obikili, 2023. "Prison Labor: The Price of Prisons and the Lasting Effects of Incarceration," NBER Working Papers 31637, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31637
    Note: DAE DEV POL
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    Cited by:

    1. Marie Christelle Mabeu & Roland Pongou, 2021. "The Interplay Between Colonial History and Postcolonial Institutions: Evidence from Cameroon," Working Papers 2111E Classification-D02,, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    2. Zanella, Giulio, 2020. "Prison Work and Convict Rehabilitation," IZA Discussion Papers 13446, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Marazyan, Karine, 2022. "Documenting Inter-personal Conflicts in Senegal during the First Quarter the 20th Century using Dispute Registries from native courts," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 2209, CEPREMAP.
    4. Okoye, Dozie, 2021. "Things fall apart? Missions, institutions, and interpersonal trust," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    5. Dozie & Roland Pongou, 2021. "Missions and Heterogeneous Social Change: Evidence from Border Discontinuities in the Emirates of Nigeria," Working Papers 2112E Classification-I20,, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
    • J47 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Coercive Labor Markets
    • N37 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Africa; Oceania
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth

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