ABSTRACT
The interviews showed that from the employers' perspective, finding a "good worker to do a bad job" was a strong motivating factor behind giving people with criminal records a chance. This desire encouraged employers to make allowances for employees with even a small degree of potential. The chapter provides a theoretical and empirical focus that attempts to capture the complexity of the barriers to sustainable workplace participation. In this research, the employment difficulties of persons exiting prisons are seen in the context of structural forces linked to the prison apparatus and declining economic opportunities for marginalized workers. In a segmented economy, where people with criminal records are already locked out of desirable jobs and compete with other "unemployables" for bad jobs, opportunities for ex-prisoners are more likely to emerge not from prohibitions on discrimination, but rather the growth in the quantity and quality of work available or a responsive state's investment in the resources workers need to succeed.
