Employment Status Dichotomy: Understanding What This Means and Using It (From Crime & Employment: Critical Issues in Crime Reduction for Corrections, P 13-38, 2004, Jessie L. Krienert and Mark S. Fleisher, eds. -- See NCJ-209355)

• NCJ Number: 209357
• Author(s): Adam M. Bossler
• Date Published: 2004
• Length: 26 pages
• Sale Source: AltaMira Press
• Publication Format: Book Chapter
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

After a literature review of research on the relationship between unemployment and crime, this paper reports on a study that identified differences and similarities between Federal inmates who were and were not employed at the time of their arrests.

Abstract

The literature review found no consensus among researchers about the unemployment-crime relationship, as they are still debating whether the direction is positive, negative, bidirectional, or spurious. The current study involved a sample of 92 Federal male inmates housed at the Greenville and Pekin Federal Correctional Institutions in Illinois. This sample was aggregately equivalent to other inmates of a medium-security Federal prison. Interviews with the inmates focused on variables related to demographics, education, family and community, drugs and alcohol use, imprisonment history, employment history, income, self-employment, quality of employment, experiences on the job, and attitudes toward work. The general finding was that Federal inmates who had jobs at the time of their arrests were significantly different from inmates who did not have jobs. The unemployed group needed services traditionally offered in prisons, namely, education, drug and alcohol counseling, and vocational training. Even when the unemployed inmates had jobs, they made less than the employed sample. The data from the employed inmates showed that employment per se was not that important in preventing crime. The quality of the employment was the most important issue. Employment must be coupled with job stability, job commitment, and mutual ties to work. Further, alcohol and drug addiction can undermine the benefits of even quality employment, as proved to be the case with the employed group. Job wages were not sufficient to support drug habits or compete with lucrative illegal income from drug dealing. Drug and alcohol treatment are critical for both groups, but the acquisitive thirst for more and more money and what it can buy must be addressed, because it underlies criminal behavior even while employed in a legal job. 4 tables and 37 references