Jobs, Race and Felony Convictions: Not a Rosy Picture

[gottaB]

Nathan Newman has picked up on an award-winning dissertation that shows how a record of incaration disproportionately affects Black job seekers.

Blog entry here.

Some selections from the study's conclusions:

There is serious disagreement among academics, policy makers, and practitioners over the extent to which contact with the criminal justice system--in itself--leads to harmful consequences for employment. The present study takes a strong stand in this debate by offering direct evidence of the causal relationship between a criminal record and employment outcomes. While survey research has produced noisy and indirect estimates of this effect, the current research design offers a direct measure of a criminal record as amechanism producing employment disparities. Using matched pairs and an experimentally assigned criminal record, this estimate is unaffected by the problems of selection which plague observational data. While certainly there are additional ways in which incarceration may affect employment outcomes, this finding provides conclusive evidence that mere contact with the criminal justice system, in the absence of any transformative or selective effects, severely limits subsequent employment opportunities. And while the audit study investigates employment barriers to ex-offenders from a micro-perspective, the implications are far-reaching. The finding that ex-offenders are one-half to one-third as likely to be considered by employers suggests that a criminal record indeed presents a major barrier to employment. With over two million people currently behind bars and over 12 million people with prior felony convictions, the consequences for labor market inequalities are potentially profound.

Second, the persistent effect of race on employment opportunities is painfully clear in these results. Blacks are less than half as likely to receive consideration by employers relative to their white counterparts, and black non-offenders fall behind even whites with prior felony convictions. The powerful effects of race thus continue to direct employment decisions in ways that contribute to persisting racial inequality. In light of these findings, current public opinion seems largely misinformed: According to a recent survey of residents in Los Angeles, Boston, Detroit, and Atlanta, researchers found that just over a quarter of whites believe there to be "a lot" of discrimination against blacks, compared to nearly two-thirds of black respondents (Kluegel & Bobo 2001). Over the past decade, affirmative action has come under attack across the country based on the argument that direct racial discrimination is no longer a major barrier to opportunity. According to this study, however, employers, at least in Milwaukee, continue to use race as a major factor in their hiring decisions. When we combine the effects of race and criminal record, the problem grows more intense. Not only are blacks much more likely to be incarcerated than whites; based on the findings presented here, they may also be more strongly affected by the impact of a criminal record. Previous estimates of the aggregate consequences of incarceration may therefore underestimate the impact on racial disparities.

Finally, in terms of policy implications, this research has troubling conclusions. In our frenzy of locking people up, our "crime control" policies may in fact exacerbate the very conditions which lead to crime in the first place. Research consistently shows that finding quality steady employment is one of the strongest predictors of desistance from crime (Shover 1996; Sampson & Laub 1993; Uggen 2000). The fact that a criminal record severely limits employment opportunities­ particularly among blacks­ suggests that these individuals are left with few viable alternatives....

For more, read the study (pdf).

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Kick

Most of this I already knew, but I realize there's a first time for everyone. The article provides good informative background on the hurdles that our society puts up for black Americans. We should at least have the decency to recognize what they're faced with.

[dani]

2. I just saw it mentioned on another blog,

Crooked Timber -- the conclusion drawn here:

In other words, even though being black and having served time both negatively affect one’s employment opportunities, controlling for education and skills you are better off being a white male with a felony conviction than a black male with no criminal record.