Unemployment, imprisonment, and social structures of accumulation: Historical contingency in the Rusche-Kirchheimer hypothesis

This study explores the relationship between punishment and social structur e by combining the work of Rusche and Kirchheimer with current theorizing r egarding social structures of accumulation (SSAs). Specifically, we theoriz e that the unemployment-imprisonment (U-I) relationship is historically con tingent. In particular; we argue that qualitative changes in the configurat ion of labor markets, state strategies for managing surplus populations, an d international relations across SSAs and stages within them result in chan ges in the magnitude and direction of the U-I relationship. In other words, changes in the qualitative relations among capital, labor and the state ar e reflected in quantitative changes in the relationship between rates of un employment and imprisonment. We hypothesize that three stages of the Fordis t SSA (exploration, 1933-1947; consolidation, 1948-1966; decay, 1967-1979) will manifest varying levels of a positive and significant U-I relationship , while the first stage of the new globalized, cyber-technology SSA (1980-1 992) will be characterized by a negative U-I relationship due to the co-eme rgence of a (semi)permanent underclass and an intensification of punitivene ss. We test this model using a structurally periodized analysis to determin e if the relationship between rates of unemployment and new court admission s to prison (net of rates of violent crime) differs across the four periods studied. Our analysis of the U-I relationship within each SSA phase, and t ime-varying parameter tests of the periodization of twentieth-century capit alist development indicate that the U-l relationship is indeed historically contingent and warrants further structurally periodized analysis.