Patterns of Income Generating Activities Among an Incarcerated Sample: Evidence From a Pilot Project

• In Event: Recent Perspectives on Employment and Crime

Abstract

For individuals who have an offending history, employment commonly consists of multiple transitions between formal employment, informal work and criminal activities. We present results from a pilot project that examines offenders’ income generating activities two months prior to incarceration, a notably volatile period. We interviewed 58 male inmates from a Pennsylvania state prison who almost all were incarcerated for an income generating crime to shed light on three main research questions: 1) What are the patterns of legal, informal and illegal work two months prior to incarceration? 2) How do conceptualizations of work relate to various patterns of work? 3) How do offenders budget and spend their income from various forms of work? Results demonstrate that most of the participants engaged in more than one income generating activity and had considerable variation in their conceptualizations of work. Moreover, most participants demonstrated very clear separate mental accounts for different income generating activities. Theoretical and policy implications will be discussed as well as implications for future research.

Authors

• Elaine Arsenault, Pennsylvania State University

• Brandy R. Parker, The Pennsylvania State University

• Holly Nguyen, Pennsylvania State University

• Brianna Jackson, Pennsylvania State University

• Gary Zajac, Pennsylvania State University