Work as a Turning Point in the Life Course of Criminals: A Duration Model of Age, Employment, and Recidivism
通过事件史模型分析一项全国性工作实验，发现就业对27岁及以上犯罪者的再犯率有显著降低作用，但对年轻犯罪者影响甚微，表明工作可能是年长犯罪者的生命转折点。
Sociologists have increasingly emphasized “turningpoints” in explaining behavioral change over the life course. Is work a turning point in the life course of criminal offenders? If criminals are provided with jobs, are they likely to stop committing crimes? Prior research is inconclusive because work effects have been biased by selectivity and obscured by the interaction of age and employment. This study yields more refined estimates by specifying event history models to analyze assignment to, eligibility for, and current participation in a national work experiment for criminal offenders. Age is found to interact with employment to affect the rate of self-reported recidivism: Those aged 27 or older are less likely to report crime and arrest when provided with marginal employment opportunities than when such opportunities are not provided. Among young participants, those in their teens and early twenties, the experimental job treatment had little effect on crime. Work thus appears to be a turning point for older, but not younger, offenders.