Race, Employment and a Criminal Record: Devah Pager
Summary
TLDRThe video explores the challenges faced by formerly incarcerated individuals, particularly focusing on how criminal records affect job prospects and how race exacerbates these difficulties. An experiment shows that ex-offenders face significant hurdles in employment, with Black applicants facing higher discrimination, even without a criminal record. The study highlights the critical need to address racial disparities and support ex-offenders in finding jobs to reduce recidivism. It suggests reforms like banning the box on job applications to allow fairer assessments and underscores the impact of mass incarceration on racial inequality in the U.S.
Takeaways
- 📈 The United States has over 2 million people incarcerated and the highest incarceration rate in the world.
- 🚪 Each year, over 700,000 individuals are released from prison, facing difficulties reintegrating into society and finding jobs.
- 🔍 A study was conducted to examine how having a criminal record affects job prospects, particularly in relation to race.
- 📉 Ex-offenders face poor employment outcomes due to factors like low education, inconsistent work history, and mental health issues.
- 👨🔬 The study used an experimental audit with matched pairs of job applicants, differing only in race and criminal record, to isolate the effect of a felony conviction.
- ⚖️ Results showed that white applicants with no criminal record were called back for jobs at double the rate of whites with a record (34% vs. 17%).
- ⚠️ Black applicants with no criminal record had lower callback rates than whites, and those with a record faced even worse outcomes (14% vs. 5%).
- ❗ A surprising finding was that white applicants with a criminal record fared better than black applicants with no criminal record.
- 📊 Racial disparities in incarceration are vast, with 12% of young Black men incarcerated at any given time, compared to less than 2% of young white men.
- 📋 The study advocates for 'ban the box' policies, which allow ex-offenders to interact with employers before revealing their criminal history, improving their employment chances.
Q & A
What is the main issue discussed in the script?
-The main issue discussed is mass incarceration in the United States and its impact on prisoner re-entry, particularly how a criminal record affects employment opportunities, especially when considering race.
How many people are incarcerated in the United States, according to the script?
-There are currently more than 2 million people incarcerated in the United States.
How does the U.S. incarceration rate compare globally?
-The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world.
What challenge do the 700,000 people released from prison each year face?
-These individuals struggle to find work and reintegrate into society after being released from prison.
What was the aim of the experiment mentioned in the script?
-The aim of the experiment was to examine how having a criminal record influences an individual’s chances of finding a job and how that process may differ based on race.
What is an experimental audit study, as described in the script?
-An experimental audit study involves sending matched pairs of job applicants (or testers) to apply for real job openings to observe how employers respond to applicants who are otherwise equally qualified but differ by certain characteristics, such as race or criminal background.
What were the main findings of the study regarding white applicants?
-The study found that about 34% of white applicants with no criminal record received callbacks or job offers, while only 17% of whites with a criminal record received callbacks, indicating that a criminal record reduces job opportunities by about 50% for white applicants.
How did black applicants fare compared to white applicants in the study?
-Black applicants without a criminal record received callbacks at only 14%, compared to 34% for white applicants without a criminal record. Black applicants with a criminal record received callbacks at just 5%.
What surprising finding did the study reveal about race and criminal records?
-The study revealed that a white applicant with a felony conviction had about the same chances of getting a job as a black applicant with no criminal record, showing that race can play a role as significant as a criminal record in employment outcomes.
What is 'ban the box,' and how does it help ex-offenders?
-'Ban the box' refers to removing the question about criminal records from job applications. This gives applicants a chance to make a personal impression on employers before being judged based on their criminal record, improving their employment outcomes.
Outlines
📊 The Scale of Mass Incarceration and Its Impact on Employment
This paragraph highlights the vast scale of mass incarceration in the United States, which holds the highest rate of incarceration globally. With over 2 million people in prison and 700,000 individuals released annually, there is a significant challenge in reintegrating these people into society, particularly in securing employment. The focus of the research is to understand how a criminal record affects job prospects, especially considering racial disparities. Ex-offenders face numerous challenges, such as low education, limited work experience, and issues like substance abuse, all of which make securing stable jobs difficult.
🔍 Experimenting to Uncover Racial and Criminal Record Biases in Employment
The paragraph explains the methodology used in the experiment—a matched-pairs audit study—designed to isolate the impact of a criminal record and race on employment prospects. White and Black men were hired as testers, and one person from each pair was randomly assigned a fake criminal record. The experiment aimed to determine how employers responded to these variables. By alternating the criminal record between the pairs, the study ensured fairness, allowing researchers to attribute differences in employment outcomes solely to the presence of a criminal record or race.
📉 White Applicants with Criminal Records and Employment Opportunities
This section presents findings from the white applicants' results. Among white applicants, those without a criminal record had a 34% callback rate, while those with a criminal record had only a 17% callback rate, a reduction of nearly 50%. This demonstrates the significant negative impact of a criminal record on job prospects for white individuals.
⚖️ Racial Disparities in Employment: Comparing Black and White Applicants
This paragraph highlights the stark racial disparities in employment opportunities. Only 14% of Black applicants without a criminal record received a callback, compared to 34% of similarly qualified white applicants. Even more troubling, Black applicants with no criminal record fared worse than white applicants with a felony conviction, showcasing the deep racial bias in hiring processes.
🚨 The Wider Impact of Mass Incarceration on Black Communities
Here, the focus shifts to the disproportionate impact of mass incarceration on Black men. With 12% of young Black men incarcerated at any given time, and nearly one-third expected to spend time in prison during their lives, the paragraph underscores how incarceration has become a common life event for disadvantaged Black men, exacerbating social and economic inequalities.
🔑 Addressing the Employment Challenges of Ex-Offenders
This paragraph discusses the vital importance of employment for ex-offenders to prevent recidivism. The best predictor of whether someone will return to prison is whether they can secure steady employment. Addressing the employment challenges faced by ex-offenders should be a top priority if society wants to reduce crime rates and promote successful reintegration.
🚫 Ban the Box: A Solution to Promote Fair Employment
This section advocates for 'banning the box'—removing questions about criminal records from job applications. By doing so, ex-offenders would have a chance to present their qualifications and make a personal impression on employers before being judged on their criminal past. The study showed that testers who had a chance to interact with employers before revealing their record had better outcomes.
🏢 A Call for Change: Rethinking Employment and Criminal Justice
The final paragraph emphasizes the connection between poverty, racial inequality, and the criminal justice system. It calls for a rethinking of the system and for providing employment opportunities to formerly incarcerated young men, especially those from Black communities. The paragraph concludes with a call to action for creating jobs for these individuals to help them rebuild their lives.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Mass incarceration
💡Prisoner re-entry
💡Criminal record
💡Racial disparities
💡Employment discrimination
💡Audit study
💡Ban the box
💡Recidivism
💡Felony conviction
💡Social stratification
Highlights
The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with over 2 million people currently incarcerated.
Mass incarceration directly contributes to a significant problem of prisoner re-entry, with over 700,000 individuals released from prison each year struggling to reintegrate into society.
A study was conducted to examine how a criminal record influences job prospects and how this varies by race.
The study used an experimental audit method, sending matched pairs of job applicants (testers) to apply for real job openings to measure employer responses.
The testers were divided into pairs of young white men and young black men, with one member of each pair randomly assigned a criminal record.
White testers without a criminal record received callbacks or job offers 34% of the time, compared to 17% for those with a criminal record, indicating a 50% reduction in employment opportunities.
Black testers without a criminal record received callbacks or job offers 14% of the time, compared to only 5% for those with a criminal record.
A surprising finding was that white applicants with a felony conviction fared just as well, if not better, than black applicants with no criminal record.
Being black in America is shown to have a similar impact on employment prospects as having a felony conviction.
The study highlights the severe racial disparities in the criminal justice system, with 12% of young black men incarcerated at any given time, compared to less than 2% of young white men.
Approximately one in three young black men will spend time in prison during their lifetime, with this figure rising to nearly 60% for young black male high school dropouts.
The criminal justice system is identified as a significant mechanism of stratification among young black men.
The study underscores the importance of employment in preventing recidivism, with steady employment being the top predictor of whether an individual will return to prison.
One proposed solution is to 'ban the box,' removing the question about criminal records from job applications to allow applicants to be judged on their qualifications first.
When applicants had the chance to speak with employers before revealing their criminal records, they had much better employment outcomes.
The study concludes that addressing the challenges of re-entry, particularly through employment, is crucial to reducing poverty and racial inequality.
Transcripts
[MUSIC PLAYING]
There are currently more than 2 million people
incarcerated in this country.
And the United States now has the highest rate
of incarceration in the world.
The problem of mass incarceration
directly translates into a problem of prisoner re-entry.
With over 700,000 individuals being released from prison
each year, we've got a huge population
that is struggling to find work and to reintegrate
into society.
What I wanted to do was to find out
how the effect of a criminal record
might influence people's chances of finding a job,
and how that process may differ depending
on the race of the job applicant.
We know that ex-offenders have on average poor employment outcomes
But we know very little about why.
Ex-offenders have low levels of schooling.
They have little or spotty work experience.
On average, ex-offenders are more
likely to have problems with substance
abuse and mental illness.
All of these things can contribute
to having trouble finding and keeping a steady job.
And so in order to isolate the effect of a criminal record
from all of these other associated characteristics,
I turned to an experiment.
So specifically I'm using what's called an experimental audit study.
And the basic design of an audit involves
sending matched pairs of job applicants, who are also
referred to as testers, to apply for real job openings
in order to see how employers respond to otherwise equally
qualified applicants who differ only
according to their selected characteristics.
In this case, according to their race or criminal background.
I hired a pair of young white men
and a pair of young black men.
And for each pair, I randomly assigned one individual
in the pair a criminal record.
What this means is none of the young men in the study who
were posing as job applicants actually
had criminal records in real life,
but for the purposes of these applications,
they communicated to employers that they
had a felony conviction.
Most job applications have a question
on the application form that asks:
Have you ever been convicted of a felony?
So the testers, when applying for these jobs, check the box
"Yes, I have been convicted of a felony,"
and explained their conviction, that they'd
spent 18 months in prison and that they'd just been
released in the previous month.
Then, each week the applicant pair
alternated who presented himself as having the criminal record.
And this is important that we were able to randomly assign
the criminal record to testers.
Because if there's anything about the individual testers
that might have made them more or less appealing from one
another, we didn't want that to be confounding the effect
of the criminal record.
So we tried to match the testers on every dimension possible
that we could think of, but if there was something
that we didn't notice or that we left out,
this ability to randomly assign the criminal record meant
that each tester served in a criminal record condition
for an equal number of cases.
So looking first at the outcomes for white testers,
we see that about 34% of whites with no criminal record
received a callback or job offer, compared to just 17%
of whites with a criminal record.
So we see that a criminal record reduces employment
opportunities by about 50%.
In the case of black testers, 14%
of those with no criminal background
received a call back or job offer, relative to just 5%
of blacks with a criminal record.
When we compare the outcomes of black and white testers side-by-side,
what's most striking is the direct effect
of race on the outcomes of these young men.
A black applicant with no criminal background
received callbacks or job offers at about half the rate
as an equally qualified white applicant.
But the most surprising finding was really
related to blacks with no criminal background
relative to whites with a felony conviction.
We find that a white applicant with a felony conviction
fared just as well, if not better,
relative to a black applicant with a clean record.
This suggests the being black in America
today is essentially like having a felony
conviction in terms of one's chances of finding employment.
The massive expansion in the criminal justice system
has not affected all groups equally.
Today's system of incarceration is characterized
by large racial disparities.
About 12% of young black men are incarcerated at any given time,
compared to less than 2% of young white men.
About one in three young black men will spend time in prison
at some point during his lifetime.
And for young black male high school dropouts,
that figure is close to 60%.
So incarceration is becoming an increasingly common event
in the life course trajectory of young, disadvantaged men.
These results point to the incredibly large and lingering
effects of direct racial discrimination in this country.
And in fact, point to the criminal justice system
as an important mechanism of stratification
among young black men today.
The United States has engaged in this grand experiment
with the buildup of mass incarceration,
but very little thought went into what happens
when these people come out.
We know that finding quality, steady employment
is the number one predictor of whether
or not an individual returns to prison
after having been released.
So if we want to keep these individuals crime free,
if we want to keep them from returning to prison,
helping ex-offenders find employment is the number one
priority.
One thing we could do is to ban the box.
That essentially means removing the question
from application forms that asks applicants
about their criminal record.
What this does is to allow job applicants
to make a personal impression on employers
before being judged on the basis of their criminal record.
In my study, the testers who actually had a chance
to talk to employers and get to know them
before revealing their criminal record
had much better employment outcomes.
Employers had a chance to get to know them
based on their actual qualifications
before ruling them out on the basis
of that single characteristic.
If we care about poverty and racial inequality,
we need to think about the criminal justice
system and the large numbers of young men being
released into communities bearing
the mark of a criminal record.
We need to find these young men jobs.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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