Marked

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

Devah Pager

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Devah Pager

Cloth $25.00 ISBN: 9780226644837 Published October 2007

Paper $16.00 ISBN: 9780226644844 Published April 2009

E-book $7.00 to $16.00 About E-books ISBN: 9780226644851 Published September 2008

Nearly every job application asks it: have you ever been convicted of a crime? For the hundreds of thousands of young men leaving American prisons each year, their answer to that question may determine whether they can find work and begin rebuilding their lives.

The product of an innovative field experiment, Marked gives us our first real glimpse into the tremendous difficulties facing ex-offenders in the job market. Devah Pager matched up pairs of young men, randomly assigned them criminal records, then sent them on hundreds of real job searches throughout the city of Milwaukee. Her applicants were attractive, articulate, and capable—yet ex-offenders received less than half the callbacks of the equally qualified applicants without criminal backgrounds. Young black men, meanwhile, paid a particularly high price: those with clean records fared no better in their job searches than white men just out of prison. Such shocking barriers to legitimate work, Pager contends, are an important reason that many ex-prisoners soon find themselves back in the realm of poverty, underground employment, and crime that led them to prison in the first place.

“Using scholarly research, field research in Milwaukee, and graphics, [Pager] shows that ex-offenders, white or black, stand a very poor chance of getting a legitimate job. . . . Both informative and convincing.”—Library Journal

“Marked is that rare book: a penetrating text that rings with moral concern couched in vivid prose—and one of the most useful sociological studies in years.”—Michael Eric Dyson

Review Quotes
Contents

"In this elegant and powerful book, Devah Pager demonstrates that the stigma of incarceration significantly diminishes the employment prospects of those 'marked' with a criminal record. She shows convincingly that the ill-effects of imprisonment on work opportunities for black men are especially severe. Her rigorous quantitative analysis is guided by a sophisticated understanding of social theory. This book is an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to understand the implications of America's current policy of mass incarceration."—Glenn C. Loury, Brown University

“How do you tell when a democracy is dead? When concentration camps spring up and everyone shivers in fear? Or is it when concentration camps spring up and no one shivers in fear because everyone knows they’re not for ‘people like us.’ . . . Questions like these are unavoidable in the face of America’s homegrown gulag archipelago. . . . In Marked, Devah Pager uses a simple technique to show how mass incarceration has undone the small amount of racial progress achieved in the 1960s and ’70s.”—The Nation

“Marked is a remarkable and timely book that addresses one of the most pressing social issues of our time: what to think and do about hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged male ex-prisoners who re-enter society each year. Pager’s brilliant and original research exhaustively documents the racial and economic barriers that keep these men from finding gainful employment while often forcing them back into crime and poverty. Marked is that rare book: a penetrating text that rings with moral concern couched in vivid prose— and one of the most useful sociological studies in years.”—Michael Eric Dyson

“In 1970, President Nixon announced a massive war on crime. More prisons were built and more people incarcerated than ever before in U.S. history. With the media's portrayal of convicts as demons, the public attitude toward anyone who had ever been arrested became bleak and hostile. According to Pager, this attitude prevails today, particularly in the job market. Using scholarly research, field research in Milwaukee, and graphics, she shows that ex-offenders, white or black, stand a very poor chance of getting a legitimate job (though black men with clean records fared the same as whites just out of prison). As a result, many live in poverty or return to crime. Pager is not an activist clamoring for reform but instead presents her findings in a clearheaded manner, pointing out the societal consequences of the predicament and suggesting ways for change. Written for the general reader with a nod to the academic audience, the book is both informative and convincing. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal

“Anyone who thinks that America is a race-blind society needs to read this book. Pager’s elegant experimental research clearly shows that imprisonment has become a central mechanism of racial stratification in the United States, adding the stigma of criminality to ongoing discrimination on the basis of skin color to reduce decisively and permanently the life chances of African American men. The sad reality of life in postindustrial America is that a black male with no criminal record has about the same chance of getting a job as a white criminal, whereas a black ex-felon has no chance at all.”<Douglas S. Massey, Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University>

"A significant and timely look at one consequence of our current policies of mass incarceration. Its strengths lie not only in the current findings, but in the additional questions it raises. Marked is likely to be of interest to scholars, activists, and policy makers dealing with mass incarceration and its consequences and the lingering effects of race in the United States."—AndreaLeverentz, American Journal of Sociology

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1 Mass Incarceration and the Problems of Prisoner Reentry
2 The Labor Market Consequences of Incarceration
3 Measuring the Labor Market Consequences of Incarceration
4 The Mark of a Criminal Record
5 The Mark of Race
6 Two Strikes and You’re Out: The Intensification of Racial and Criminal Stigma
7 But What If…? Variations on the Experimental Design
8 Conclusion: Missing the Mark

Notes
References
Index

For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu

Black Studies

Criminology

Sociology: General Sociology | Occupations, Professions, Work | Urban and Rural Sociology

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