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Criminal Punishment, Labor Market Outcomes, and Economic Inequality: Devah Pager's

Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Brett C. Burkhardt
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Abstract

A growing empirical literature examines the role of incarceration in labor market outcomes and economic inequality more broadly. Devah Pager's book, Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration (2007), offers compelling evidence that employment opportunities for former prisoners—especially black former prisoners—are bleak. I review Pager's methods and findings, place them in the context of previous work, and discuss the relation of race to a criminal record. I then explore several lines of related research that investigate the increasing reach of criminal punishment into various social realms. One goal of this essay is to draw research on economic inequality into the law and society literature.

Type
Review Essay
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , Fall 2009 , pp. 1039 - 1060
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2009 

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