Carceral networking and penal liminality: A case study of a security NGO

More than 600,000 people leave U.S. jails and prisons annually, a chronic policy concern for the penal state and welfare providers with many interventions recommending workforce development. However, job outlets are sparse, unstable, and often exploitative. But even as scholars document these conditions, their analyses are largely constrained to “classical” workfare programs rather than emergent job sectors. Indeed, security NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are hiring formerly incarcerated people, pushing the boundaries of how we conceptualize and measure the (re)production of socio-economic inequality. Drawing from 35 interviews with employees of the California-based security NGO Urban Alchemy, this paper offers two findings. First, reentry workers’ employment experience in the security sector indicates a blurring of stigma and social capital where people are finding work because of their record and without a third-party service provider. This “carceral networking” challenges how we study reentry success vis-à-vis the labor market. Second, reentry workers come to occupy a position of “penal liminality” that puts them at greater risk of surveillance from both their employers and penal agents while simultaneously leveraging police interventions to accomplish organizational goals. This tense dichotomy highlights how security work blurs the roles of those who police and those that are policed.