Working for 'good order and discipline': The impact of mandatory convict labour on the maintenance of orderly prison life in contemporary Portugal

This dissertation examines---theoretically and empirically---the efficacy of the statutory norm for the provision of mandatory prison labour currently in force in Portugal. More specifically, it assesses a possible discrepancy between the formal legal objectives of this normative provision and its informal social practice.;This study begins with an examination of compulsory work as a juridical norm, locating it within the penal aim of rehabilitation as the principal objective of the administration of the prison sentence. From this framework, the thesis proposes that its formal legal aim is to contribute to the maintenance of good order and discipline within the prison. Based on the notion of 'the devil finds work for idle hands', compulsory labour ensures the inmate's participation in work and, by extension, the positive contribution of this activity to orderly prison life.;This justification is subsequently challenged by a more sociologically informed perspective rooted in the symbolic interactionist notion of human agency. Qualitative field research in a maximum security penitentiary in Portugal demonstrates that inmates do not recognize the legitimacy of mandatory convict labour, interpreting it as profoundly unjust. Consistent with defiance theory and the association between perceptions of injustice and reactions of indignation and hostility, this study suggests that the imposition to work may be a correlate of disorder.;Taking advantage of the substitution of mandatory convict labour for voluntary work in 1994 in this prison, quantitative data are collected from 1991--1995 to test this hypothesis. An interrupted time series analysis shows that in comparison with voluntary labour, compulsory work is associated with a greater number of disciplinary infractions as well as those committing them. Further, a greater number of moderately serious disciplinary infractions is related to the mandatory work regime, as is a greater amount of total disorder in the prison.;From a penological perspective, the inefficacy of the normative provision of compulsory convict labour would suggest the adoption of a voluntary work regime. However, a broader view of the imposition of labour as a social artefact may demonstrate its dependence on wider social forces and its potential effectiveness in fulfilling less formal social aims.