Go Directly to Jail and Do Not Collect? A Long-Term Study of Recidivism, Employment, and Earnings Patterns among Prison Releasees

Abstract

Traditional human capital models suggest that age, race, and education affect individual labor market opportunities and levels of participation in crime. A unique data set containing 17 years of criminal activity and 9 years of earnings records for 1,176 men released from Georgia prisons was used to examine which demographic and criminal history characteristics affect labor market patterns among prison releasees. The examination yielded 3 main results. First, labor market participation rates and earnings levels were extremely low. Second, traditional findings on the effects of race and education on earnings levels were supported for this criminally active subset of the population. However, race and education did not affect employment rates. Employment rates of older individuals were especially low, even after controlling for characteristics expected to affect labor market attachment. Third, the amount of time incarcerated did not significantly affect earnings in the community, conditional on any employment.