51 pages • 1 hour read
Devah PagerMarked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary and Analysis: “Two Strikes and You’re Out: The Intensification of Racial and Criminal Stigma”
Pager opens Chapter 6 with notes from one of her field experiments, providing a welcome respite from the preceding statistically-dense chapters. She describes an encounter between a restaurant manager and Jerome, one of her Black auditors. Jerome, the only Black person in the restaurant, was reluctantly given an application form after being lectured by the manager about his drug conviction: “‘You can’t be screwing up like this at your age. A kid like you can ruin his whole life like this’” (100). The manager then dismissed Jerome without giving him a chance to explain, saying he’d call Jerome back if there was an open position. Pager found that Black testers with criminal records were routinely thwarted by disapproving employers. These auditors had two strikes against them: race and criminality. Chapter 6 examines how the impact of race and criminal background fluctuated depending on three factors: 1) degree of personal contact, 2) job location, and 3) job type.
Two Strikes and You’re Out
Pager argues that the combination of race and a criminal record generates strong negative reactions from employers. Knowledge of criminality activated negative racial stereotypes and weakened incentives to give testers the benefit of the doubt. By contrast, white testers lacked the stereotypical profile of criminals, which made employers more likely to overlook their convictions. Pager found that the white auditors were given opportunities to explain the circumstances of their records, and that employers interpreted their crimes as isolated incidents rather than inherent personal traits. The book’s major theme—of Black ex-offenders bearing a permanent mark of criminality—is strengthened through these results. Using white men as a baseline, Pager measured the impact of race and criminality on the employment outcomes of her testers.
Personal Contact
Extended personal contact can counter stereotypes and negative first impressions. Personalized information is conveyed over the course of every interaction; the longer the interaction, the more information gets passed on. Pager’s testers had extensive personal contact with employers in about 25% of audits (103). Although the sample size is small, these interactions reveal that employers evaluated Black testers differently than white testers. Personal contact doubled the chance of getting a callback for white nonoffenders (104). Personal contact also helped white ex-offenders, dropping the penalty of a criminal record on the hiring process from 70% to 20% (104).
Conversely, personal contact between Black testers and employers yielded markedly different results. Black auditors without a criminal background were five times more likely to get a callback if they had personal contact with employers, while personal contact barely improved outcomes for Black ex-offenders (105). In short, the choice of bright, personable, and articulate testers could not overcome the combined effects of Blackness and criminality.
City and Suburban Location
In this section, Pager argues that demographic differences have labor market consequences. The suburbs of Milwaukee are predominantly white, while the city center is racially mixed. This is significant because outlying areas account for over 90% of recent job openings in Milwaukee, compared to 4% in the city center (107). Pager argues that this pattern of job growth negatively impacts racial minorities, who tend to live in the city center. The prohibitive cost of transportation dissuades many Black people from applying for suburban jobs, especially for low-wage, entry-level work. Suburban employers thus draw from a relatively homogenous group of applicants, which results in a racially homogenous workforce. Some researchers believe that companies choose to locate themselves in the suburbs precisely because they are seeking a particular kind of worker. In other words, opening a company in the suburbs is a way of controlling the racial composition of the workforce.
Pager’s experiments controlled for the effects of location. She matched job seekers to jobs based on their place of residence, mode of transportation, and sources of information about job openings. Thus, she was able to assess employer preferences regarding race, criminal record, and location. For white auditors without a criminal record, the chance of a callback rose significantly in suburban areas. White ex-offenders also did well in the suburbs, getting as many callbacks as white non-offenders in the city center: “The move from city to suburb corresponds to drop in the penalty of a criminal record from 70 to 45%” (109). Although criminality remains a barrier to employment in all locations, suburban employers were less put off by a white applicants’ criminal history than urban employers were. Economics may play a role in this outcome: The demand for employees is greater in the suburbs than the city, which may lead employers to overlook certain undesirable traits, such as criminality.
The increased demand for workers in the suburbs did not benefit Black non-offenders to the same degree as white non-offenders. The increase in callbacks for the former group was 50%, compared to nearly 100% for the latter (111). Outcomes for Black auditors with a criminal record were even worse. Based on these findings, Pager concludes that race, criminal record, and location interact in ways that negatively impact young Black men. Suburban employers were more receptive than urban employers to applicants of all types, except for Black men with criminal records. Once again, race and criminality combined produced consequences that were greater than race and criminality alone.
Occupational Category: The Case of Restaurant Jobs
Auditor experiences varied across job categories. Of the six main categories Pager studied, restaurant jobs stand out as the least likely to ask about criminality (112). Restaurant jobs offer low pay and have a high turnover rate, which prompts employers to cast a wide recruitment net and to lower their expectations of applicants. In many cases, these eager employers are less put off by criminal records than employers in other occupational categories.
Callback rates for all white applicants were higher for restaurant jobs than other occupations, regardless of criminal record. For Black job seekers, however, restaurant jobs offered the lowest rate of callbacks than any other occupation: Black auditors with criminal records received callbacks from restaurants only 2% of the time. The percentage was three times as high in non-restaurant contexts; for Black non-offenders, the restaurant callback rate was 7%, compared to 16% for other occupations (114). While restaurants are more open to hiring white ex-offenders than other occupations, Black ex-offenders face poor prospects in this field.
The rationale behind employer decisions is difficult to discern, but the heavy representation of white workers at the front of the house, as waitstaff and hosts, and the concentration of minorities in the back, as dishwashers and cooks, suggests that race plays a role in their decisions. Black ex-offenders are particularly stigmatized; the combination of race and criminality, then, creates employment barriers that are virtually impossible to overcome, even in high demand contexts.
Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis: “But What If . . .? Variations on the Experimental Design”
In Chapter 7, Pager staves off potential criticisms of her experiments by engaging in “what ifs?” Generalizing the conclusions of experiments to other contexts is a common criticism of the audit method. To address this issue, Pager supplemented her audits with data derived from phone surveys that shifted the emphasis away from job seekers to employers. After each audit, Pager invited employers to participate in phone surveys about their concerns and priorities. She posed a wide range of questions to provide a broader understanding of how and why they made their decisions. She then drew on this information to consider how her audits might have played out differently.
How Do Milwaukee Employers Compare to Those of Other Cities?
Although Pager limited her audits to Milwaukee, post-interview surveys allow for a broader application of her conclusions. She repeated a 1999 survey of Milwaukee, Cleveland, Chicago, and Los Angeles, which allowed her to compare the responses of her employers to those in these cities. She found that employer attitudes remained virtually the same in Milwaukee from 1999 to 2001, and that employers in the other cities were more likely to hire people with unstable work histories (120). Ex-offenders, however, fared better in Milwaukee than they did elsewhere.
How Do Ex-Offenders Fare Compared to Other Groups of Low-Wage Workers?
In this section, Pager compares the labor market outcomes of ex-offenders to those of other marginalized groups, such as welfare recipients, GED holders, and applicants with gaps in their employment history. She concludes that employers in Milwaukee are more apt to hire individuals from marginalized groups than ex-offenders (121). A criminal record, then, is the greatest impediment to positive labor outcomes.
How Do Employers Respond to the Type of Conviction?
Through post-interview surveys, Pager learned that employers respond differently to different types of crime. Her survey began with a question about applicants with drug convictions; the profile of this hypothetical applicant closely matched that of the auditors who interviewed with the employers. The survey revealed that 50% of employers were open to hiring drug felons (123). When asked about other types of crimes, however, their attitudes shifted. For example, only 30% of employers were open to hiring a person convicted of burglary, which may reflect their fears of workplace theft (123). Similarly, only 25% of employers expressed openness to hiring violent offenders, with several voicing concerns about the safety of their customers (123).
How do Employers Respond to the Type of Sanction?
Pager assessed how employers respond to different types of sanctions by posing questions about prison time and drug treatment programs. She found that 73% of employers were willing to hire someone who spent time in treatment, compared to 62% willing to hire ex-inmates (125). More than a dozen employers expressed concerns about drug use, while half of these mentioned requiring drug tests of ex-offenders (126). Treatment programs seemed to reassure employers that candidates would remain drug-free. Moreover, employers viewed prison as a more serious sanction than treatment.
The severity of the sanction in turn influenced views about the severity of the crime. Employers favored ex-offenders who had worked after their release over those who did not have post-incarceration work histories, which may reflect a concern about recidivism. Indeed, many employers asked questions about when the hypothetical candidates had been released from prison, with some specifying that they would not hire ex-offenders who had just gotten out of prison. Pager’s findings are highly relevant for policy makers, as crime policy currently stresses punishment rather than treatment and grossly underfunds transitional work programs. These two policies negatively impact job prospects and provide a starting point for considering Criminal Justice Reform in the Age of Mass Incarceration.
Does the Race of the Employer Make a Difference?
This section focuses on the race of employers and its impact on applicant outcomes. Studies suggest that Black employers are as wary of minority job applicants as white employers, sometimes more so (128). The same holds for applicants with a criminal history. Because of mass incarceration, Black employers are more likely to know someone in the criminal justice system. Pager hypothesizes that this personal contact may increase their likelihood of hiring ex-offenders. However, only 10% of the employers in her experiments were racial minorities (128). This small sample size, combined with the low callback rate of Black testers and testers with criminal records, makes it impossible to draw firm conclusions based on the audits. Pager supplements this data with information derived from surveys, which reveals that minority employers are four times as likely to hire an ex-offender than white employers. Some employers expressed a desire to give ex-offenders a second chance, while others were open to learning more about the circumstances of the applicant’s crime. Some minority employers also stressed that credentials and ability outweighed a criminal past. The personal experiences of employers seem to account for their openness to hiring ex-offenders.
How Much Do Prior Experiences Affect Employer Attitudes?
Survey data reveals that prior experience with ex-offender employees significantly impacts employer attitudes. Almost half the employers in Pager’s study had previously hired ex-offenders. These employers were more open to hiring other ex-offenders than those who lacked prior experience. 80% of employers who hired ex-offenders characterized their experiences as positive (130).
Are Employers Concerned about Liability?
Through surveys and discussions prompted by a Wall Street Journal article featuring her data, Pager learned that some employers are reluctant to hire Black job candidates for legal reasons. Employers regularly promote and fire employees, and antidiscrimination laws open employers to lawsuits when these terminated, non-promoted employees are Black. Pager notes the irony of the situation: “Out of fear of being charged with discrimination, employers discriminate all the more” (132). She also notes that employers grossly overestimate liability risks, in part because high-profile cases are overrepresented in the media. Nevertheless, threats of frivolous lawsuits add to the list of perceived risks employers associate with Black job seekers.
Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis: “Conclusion: Missing the Mark”
Chapter 8 opens with a discussion of the wide-ranging effects of incarceration. In addition to impacting employment, prison time results in physical and psychological decline. While incarcerated, most inmates are idle and do not build relevant job skills. They are exposed to a culture of violence and separated from their families and communities. Prisons are rife with infectious diseases, such as hepatitis, tuberculosis, and HIV. The negative effects of prison, then, extend far beyond the scope of Pager’s study. The many negative effects of incarceration are the impetus for criminal justice reform, which takes forms such as alternative justice models and focusing on transition back into society.
The Mark of Race
Black people make up a disproportionate part of the prison population. The effects of incarceration are therefore strong in Black communities. The mass incarceration of Black people has also impacted the American consciousness. Fueled by crime policy and the media, perceptions of young Black men have become skewed, triggering discomfort, anxiety, and fear. Given the association of Blackness with crime, it is no wonder that race negatively impacts job prospects. Pager’s data shows just how dire these prospects are: “Even a black applicant with no criminal background fares no better—and perhaps worse—than does a white applicant with a felony conviction” (146). For white people, a criminal record presents a serious challenge to gaining employment. For Black people, the barrier is virtually insurmountable.
The Cycle of Stigma
Black job candidates receive explicit and implicit feedback during their job searches. This information not only guides their behavior in subsequent searches, but also influences their expectations of outcomes. Low expectations can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Expecting negative outcomes may erode the confidence of Black candidates and lead them to behave defensively in interviews, fueling the stereotype of the angry Black person and further hindering their chances of employment. The job search thus forms part of a cycle of unemployment, income loss, low self-esteem, and depression. The psychological toll causes many to drop out of the labor market. Those who persevere suffer from long periods of unemployment, which makes employers even more reluctant to hire them. In short, racial stigma contributes to negative employment outcomes, which, in turn, exacerbates stigma. This cycle is all the more damaging because it is almost entirely hidden, leading many to believe that Black people disproportionately suffer from unemployment for intrinsic reasons.
From Stigma to Stratification
Pager’s experiments focused on the impact of race and criminality on employment in entry-level jobs. Though narrowly focused, her findings invite discussion across a wide range of domains. Stigmas of race and criminality lead to disadvantage in varied contexts outside the labor market, notably in housing searches, car sales, and bank loans. Everyday experiences of disadvantage have a cumulative effect. For members of marginalized groups, achievements require more effort, take longer, and impose greater financial and emotional costs. In the social realm, incarceration leads to the loss of civil liberties, disrupts familial ties, and results in job and housing loss.
Glimpsing into the Future of Crime and Punishment
The criminal justice system expanded widely in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Heeding calls for stricter enforcement and harsher penalties, politicians on both sides of the aisle supported its expansion. After decades of falling crime rates, however, public opinion began shifting. According to a 2002 survey, three-quarters of Americans favor probation to prison for non-violent crimes (150). Similarly, more than half of those surveyed believe in treating drug use as a disease, not a crime (150). Studies also show that Americans support discretionary rather than mandatory sentencing practices. In short, Americans favor crime policies that emphasize prevention and treatment. By 2003, over a dozen states had altered their sentencing policies by repealing mandatory sentencing laws for drug offences, increasing rehabilitative services, and expanding programs that offer an alternative to incarceration. If sustained, these changes will certainly lower incarceration rates. Changes like these play an integral role in criminal justice reform.
Avoiding the Mark
Many states are experimenting with alternatives to incarceration, such as community service, restorative justice, community supervision, and treatment. Studies reveal that these programs positively impact individuals and communities by curbing recidivism rates and reducing the financial burden of long-term incarceration (151). Drug courts, for instance, are non-criminal proceedings that provide treatment and supervision for drug offenders, allowing them to avoid the stigma of having a criminal record.
Easing the Transition
Transition assistance is key to facilitating reentry and reducing recidivism rates. Several states have explored new models of supervision outside the parole system. One program involves the use of intermediaries to help former inmates find employment. In addition to serving as liaisons between employers and ex-offenders, intermediaries help alleviate concerns employers might have about hiring ex-offenders. They also serve as staffing agents for small businesses and address the job-readiness needs of former inmates, from finding work-appropriate clothing to honing their interview skills. Reviews of new programs in New York, Illinois, and Texas have yielded promising results and may serve as guides for a national program to help ex-offenders.
Supporting Employment by Supporting Employers
Supporting employers is critical to facilitating reentry. Intermediaries ease employers’ anxieties by screening and evaluating job candidates. However, employers remain legally liable for their employees’ actions, which dissuades them from hiring former convicts. Currently, the Federal Bonding Program is the only program that helps employers defray the cost of damages and losses caused by employees. Pager concludes that employers must be incentivized to hire ex-offenders with new programs that limit their liability.
Erasing the Mark
The stigma of a criminal record does not fade with time. Criminal records cannot be removed from databases, and they appear during routine background checks years after the fact, hindering the job prospects of rehabilitated ex-offenders. The mark of a criminal conviction imposes other barriers to reentry, namely, by restricting access to a variety of social services. Some states have passed laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of a criminal record, but these states still make criminal records easily accessible to the public. Some employers have taken antidiscrimination in their own hands by only asking questions about relevant crimes during the interview process. Pager urges state governments to restrict the kind of information available to the public, particularly information that has no bearing on jobs. She also recommends placing time limits on the accessibility of criminal records and promotes expungement in cases where public safety is not at risk.
Confronting Race
New incarceration and reentry policies must consider race. Despite claims to the contrary, race remains a major barrier in labor markets. Better enforcement of antidiscrimination laws is vital to curbing the problem. Other solutions include supporting affirmative action, providing tax incentives to companies that promote diversity, and combatting racial stereotyping. Social inequities must also be addressed, including affordable childcare, school funding, and equal access to employment opportunities. There is no single solution to the complex problem of racial discrimination and prisoner reentry. Pager’s study identifies and empirically measures some key consequences of mass incarceration. As such, it provides an important point of entry for discussions of criminal justice reform.
