With over 2 million individuals currently incarcerated, and over half a million prisoners released each year, the large and growing numbers of men being processed through the [U.S.] criminal justice system raises important questions about the consequences of this massive institutional intervention. This paper focuses on the consequences of incarceration for the employment outcomes of black and white job seekers. … By using matched pairs of individuals to apply for real entry- level jobs, it becomes possible to directly measure the extent to which a criminal record in the absence of other disqualifying characteristics serves as a barrier to employment among equally qualified applicants. I find that a criminal record is associated with a 50 percent reduction in employment opportunities for whites and a 64 percent reduction for blacks.
| The above is part of an abstract of Devah Pager's working paper (via Crooked Timber's "Incarceration and the Labor Market," via Natha Newman's "Better to be White Felon Than Honest Black," via Atrios' "End of Racism")
Download the paper (459 KB) in PDF format
posted in data on August 27, 2003 11:48 PM | t (2)
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