ABSTRACT
This chapter explores both shortand long-run effects. It draws upon the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which surveys a national sample of Americans aged 14 to 21 in 1979, to follow workers as they moved from prison to the labor market. The chapter examines employment as a function of youth incarceration, jail time, and work experience, controlling also for personal and regional characteristics such as the extent of juvenile contact with the criminal justice system and the local unemployment rate. It includes employment status both before and after incarceration, because the same characteristics that place men at risk of unemployment or low wages also raise their chances of criminal conviction. The weakness of social protection mechanisms does not alone explain the superior US employment record. In the United States, criminal justice policy constitutes a significant state intervention, providing a sizeable, nonmarket reallocation of labor that has significant effects on employment trends.
