Flashback Friday.
Having a criminal record negatively affects the likelihood of being considered for a job. Devah Pager conducted a matched-pair experiment in which she had male testers apply for the same entry-level jobs advertised in Milwaukee newspapers. She gave the assistants fake credentials that make them equivalent in terms of education, job experience, and so on. Half were Black and half White.
One tester from each pair was instructed to indicate that they had a past non-violent drug possession offense. Pager then collected data on how many of the applicants were called back for an interview after submitting their fake applications.
The results indicate that getting a job with a criminal record is difficult. Having even a non-violent drug offense had a significant impact on rates of callbacks:
What was surprising was that race actually turned out to be more significant than a criminal background. Notice that employers were more likely to call Whites with a criminal record (17% were offered an interview) than Blacks without a criminal record (14%). And while having a criminal background hurt all applicants’ chances of getting an interview, African Americans with a non-violent offense faced particularly dismal employment prospects. Imagine if the fake criminal offense had been for a property or violent crime?
In addition, according to Pager, employers seemed to expect that Black applicants might have a criminal record:
When people think of Black men they think of a criminal. It affects the way Black men are treated in the labor market. In fact, Black testers in our study were likely to be asked up front if they have a criminal record, while whites were rarely asked…
African American men face a double barrier: higher rates of incarceration and racial discrimination.
Originally posted in 2009.
Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.
Comments 160
sarah — November 14, 2009
That is appalling. And people will still insist that racism is no longer a problem.
MeToo — November 14, 2009
I don't think the bars on the graph are mislabeled; doesn't each bar represent the percentage of people of that race who were unemployed at those times, and the colours denote the percentage of each unemployed group who had a prison or a non-prison background? The majority of unemployed people surely haven't been prisoners at some point, even in an incarceration-happy place like the US.
Woz — November 14, 2009
Even more disturbing in terms of criminal justice and race, an audit study underway here at the U of M has found that a simple arrest record (with no conviction) has a huge impact on employment potential. And, as you might guess, the same study has also found that young black men without criminal records are less likely to get called back for a job interview than young white men with an arrest record...
styleygeek — November 14, 2009
How did the hirers know from the CVs that the applicants were black or white? Clearly from the figures they did, but I'm wondering whether it was just implied (by names, schools, etc) or whether they knew for sure. I expect if there was any uncertainty, the effect must be a lot worse when hirers know for sure.
Duran2 — November 15, 2009
White people are afraid of black people, especially black criminals, duh.
foo — November 15, 2009
asian, chinese, japanese, vietnamese, latino, etc., where are they in this study ?
The Third — November 15, 2009
And people wonder why affirmative action is important; I hate getting into discussions with (white) friends about how it takes jobs away from qualified people.
Dave Riddell (pathways) 's status on Monday, 16-Nov-09 21:44:19 UTC - Identi.ca — November 16, 2009
[...] http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/11/14/race-criminal-background-and-employment/ a few seconds ago from eventbox [...]
anonymous_for_now — November 17, 2009
This happens even for high level jobs. I'm a senior software engineer with 12+ years of experience and I used to work for one of the largest software/hardware companies in the world. Our whole engineering department at our site got laid off (30+ engineers). I went job searching, and in this economy one takes what one gets. When interviewing for the company I currently work for (well, until the economy improves, though the company is not bad at all overall), the HR person let me know that they would be doing a background check and she then looked directly at me and asked her 'if there was anything in my background she should know of'. If the economy wasn't so bad, I would have walked out at that point. I'm pretty sure (and I've asked around) that the way the question was put to me wasn't put to white employees. In her eyes, a black male with a degree, 12+ years of experience coming from a prestigious company applying for a six figure job was still suspect.
When the background check came back, she actually sounded positively surprised (all schools checked out, no criminal record, glowing references from past bosses etc). Some days I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Joblessness by Race, Age, Gender, and Education Level » Sociological Images — January 16, 2010
[...] And, too add insult to injury, after all is said and done, a black person without a criminal record is less likely to get a job interview than a white person with one. A black person with a criminal record, his chance of getting a call back after dropping off a resume is something like five percent. No I’m not joking. [...]
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[...] do the other stuff (e.g., challenging the web of racist institutions that preserve class and race privilege), then no amount of fried chicken will make the difference. Leave a Comment [...]
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[...] Foucault also finds the utilization of rhetoric of progress insidious, because it is through this rhetoric that exercises of power are justified and maintained. For example, people are very quick to attribute the increasing prioritization of education to the process human progress. However, while education may well improve people’s lives and promote new discoveries and technology, the inequalities institutionalized in our education system, help perpetuate poverty, violence, etc. In other words, while continual progress towards technological advancement and development is part of the story, it is certainly not the whole story. This incomplete narrative of progress is used to justify the current modus operandi, which in turn serves as justification for the perpetuation of systems of privilege. [...]
Asianic — October 3, 2010
Anonymous_for_you, that's sad they'd do that to you. Goes to show you, even the most qualified black-man is always turned down.
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[...] racial discrimination. This last finding is no shock given that employers are more likely to call back a white job applicant with a criminal record than a similarly qualified black man without a [...]
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[...] racial discrimination. This last finding is no shock given that employers are more likely to call back a white job applicant with a criminal record than a similarly qualified black man without a [...]
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[...] and remember these are just those in the system now. Many more people (and their families) live lives permanently hampered by criminal records and the experience of imprisonment. Advertisement GA_googleAddAttr("AdOpt", "1"); [...]
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[...] Blacks also experience inequalities in employment. Two economists who conducted an experiment in the early 2000′s found that applicants with white-sounding names (ex. Emily and Greg) received 50% more callbacks for job interviews than applicants with black-sounding names (ex. Lakisha and Jamal) even when the applicant’s qualifications were identical (2). In addition, a separate study found that employers were more likely to callback Whites with a criminal record (17% offered an interview) th... [...]
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[...] “black” sounding names are much less likely to get called for a job interview. Add in a conviction record, and suddenly a black candidate’s chances of being called for an interview drop to about 5%. [...]
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[...] it’s very tough to get a job in this economy, even before considering ongoing inequalities in hiring practices and earned income by gender, race, etc. However, he’s pushing the patriarchal creepy-uncle thing [...]
Melanie Johnson — December 17, 2013
What about women?
What do police officers think about how the police department in Ferguson, MO is handling the aftermath of the Brown shooting? at that's why they call it CRIMINAL justice — August 17, 2014
[…] either. By age 30-34, 3.2% of white men have been in prison, where 22.4% of black men have (Race, Criminal Background, and Employment). In Missouri, 56% of black men graduate from high school, where 81% of white men do (National […]
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[…] RACE, CRIMINAL BACKGROUND, AND EMPLOYMENT by Gwen Sharp, PhD, The Society Pages […]
M. N. — November 25, 2014
I wouldn't want to hire someone with a criminal background, so why should a company? There has to be some form of reasonable reassurance that you're not going to be yet another victim. I'm not saying that transgressions of youth shouldn't be overlooked and opportunity given to turn things around, but there are a lot of people with repeat convictions, who've proven they aren't adapting to social expectations. If this creates an appearance of racism, then it is what it is and the fate of a race will depend on it's ability to transcend it's own weaknesses. Stop making this an injustice by finger pointing, own up to problems and fix them.
KDT — April 11, 2015
Don't forget or over look that the majarity of blacks talk & act like scum bags. The majority of blacks contribute nothing to America but bad manners ,AIDS have off spring that run the streets robing rapeing and make schools a unsafe place for normal children. Blacks are a curse on America and the world. I wish they would conform to rules and act like productive members of America. But they refuse they choose to be scum bags. And no way will I accept or excuse there poor actions just because there black. If the majority whites acted this way I would say the same thing about whites. Time for all other races to no longer put up with how the majority of blacks act.
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[…] You may read more about this in Gwen Sharp’s article, Race, Criminal Background, and Employment. […]
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Bundy,yes they do ask the black person all the time that question I applied for the federal government job first words came out his mouth...do I anything on my record I laughed an said (no).....
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[…] example, black men with no criminal record are less likely to get called back for a job interview than identically qualified white men with a criminal record. To employers, whether they admit it or […]
J. Williams — August 24, 2016
When you're applying for a job, once they see that you have a record, you're OUT- doesn't matter what your race is. And since most, if not all, applications are filled out on the internet, they seldom know what race you are. So, really, what difference does race make?! The affirmative action part of the process, at the end, is for federal compliance. Seldom seen- before the 'criminal record' segment of the application.
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