Same Criminal Record, Different Outcomes: Identity and the Uneven Path to Desistance and Employment

• In Event: Work, Worth, and Desistance from Crime: The Employment Connection

Abstract

Objective: Employment is critically important to the re-entry process for most record holders, as a standard condition of their community supervision agreement, as a turning point, and as a way to solidify new prosocial identities in the desistance process. However, seeking and maintaining gainful employment is easier for some record holders than others. This research aims to illuminate intersectional differences in the relationship between employment and desistance in order to better understand the challenges women and people of color face when re-entering the community.

Data/Methods: We use mixed methods to analyze the ROADS I data, part of the seven-wave longitudinal ROADS dataset (N = 1,247). ROADS is the largest and longest proscriptive desistance study of a diverse contemporary sample of serious drug-involved offenders released from prison in the state of Delaware in the 1990s.

Results: We find intersectional differences with regard to the application processes, occupational opportunities, the utility of social ties leading to employment, and childcare as a barrier.

Conclusions/Implications: As policy makers consider how best to support record holders in the desistance process, job training and employment expectations may need to be altered to adequately address the needs of women and people of color.

Authors

• Rachel Novick, University of New Haven

• Rachel van Etten, University of Cincinnati

• Mariah Robles, University of New Haven

• Audrey Hickert, University of Cincinnati