The Market for a Criminal Record: From Exclusion to Exploitation Among Formerly Incarcerated Workers

Adam Reich, Associate Professor of Sociology, Columbia University

Abstract: Previous research has identified how the mark of a criminal record leads to exclusion from the labor market. In this talk, based on work with Mireia Triguero Roura, I explore how the economic significance of a criminal record differs depending on the tightness of the labor market. In periods of labor market tightness, the mark of a criminal record may be less strongly associated with exclusion from the labor market and more strongly associated with exploitation within it, with implications for formerly incarcerated people and for the labor market as a whole. I draw on interviews with correctional administrators and formerly incarcerated people; an analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97); and a case study of the construction industry in New York City. The talk extends the literature on the labor market consequences of a criminal record by bringing it into conversation with an older literature on the political economy of punishment.

Adam Reich specializes in economic and cultural sociology. He is the author of four books, the most recent of which is Working for Respect: Community and Conflict at Walmart (Columbia, 2018), co-authored with Peter Bearman. Reich is the co-director (with Suresh Naidu) of the Columbia Labor Lab. During the 2022-2023 academic year, Reich is a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.