Employment Dimensions of Reentry: Understanding the Nexus between Prisoner Reentry and Work

Analysts commonly think of crime as an alternative to work, sometimes making the comparison casually and sometimes with a great deal of formality. The most obvious points of connection are that crime (sometimes) yields financial returns and that it takes effort and time to do. If crime is “work, ” the two types of activities are substitutes, and improving legal sector employment opportunities through programs emphasizing job skills and job search will prevent crime. The pressure on prevention efforts, then, is to “make work pay ” for participants, altering incentives somehow to make work relatively more attractive. Programs following this approach often subsidize work or aim to develop skills that will result in higher wages. There clearly are limits to the usefulness of the analogy, as there are many types of illegal behavior that appear to have little resemblance to “work. ” Some of these are more closely related to our notions of leisure than to work, such as driving under the influence or vandalism, and some are hard to categorize as “like ” other activities, such as sex offenses or drug use. Yet even if crime is something very different from work, it may be possible that employment conditions influence criminal activity. The availability of a good job could reduce illegal behavior by affecting the benefits or costs of crime, by occupying a potential offender for many hours pe