Get a Job Labor Markets, Economic Opportunity, and Crime [Hardcover]

Are the unemployed more likely to commit crimes? Does having a job make one less likely to commit a crime? Criminologists have found that individuals who are marginalized from the labor market are more likely to commit crimes, and communities with more members who are marginal to the labor market have higher rates of crime. Yet, as Robert Crutchfield explains, contrary to popular expectations, unemployment has been found to be an inconsistent predictor of either individual criminality or collective crime rates. In Get a Job, Crutchfield offers a carefully nuanced understanding of the links among work, unemployment, and crime.

Crutchfield explains how people’s positioning in the labor market affects their participation in all kinds of crimes, from violent acts to profit-motivated offenses such as theft and drug trafficking. Crutchfield also draws on his first-hand knowledge of growing up in a poor, black neighborhood in Pittsburgh and later working on the streets as a parole officer, enabling him to develop a more complete understanding of how work and crime are related and both contribute to, and are a result of, social inequalities and disadvantage. Well-researched and informative, Get a Job tells a powerful story of one of the most troubling side effects of economic disparities in America.

[] Get a Job offers a detailed discussion of labor-market stratification and crime. Readers will find an unconventional combination of scholarly work and personal voice, with nuanced descriptions of anomalies and discrepancies, and a detailed agenda for future study. Get a Job takes a giant step to unravel the modern paradox of declining crime in the midst of deepening fissures in contemporary labor markets. Crutchfield weaves evidence from across the social sciences and the lived experiences of increasingly marginalized workers to advance a theory of persistent crime, stratified labor, and deepening economic inequality in the modern world of transient alj