White-Collars and Black Sheep: A Twenty-Year Criminological Follow-Up of White-Collar Ex-Offenders

Abstract

This paper describes a further analysis of the outcome of a twenty-year criminological follow-up of a consecutive series of 348 male ex-offenders seeking white-collar employment who were offered the services of a specialist employment agency (APEX) in the early 1970s. This analysis shows the value of a more sophisticated statistical analysis which combines survival analysis with smoothing models: this provides new insights into the theoretical understanding of the data. There is evidence that remaining in contact with the organisation, irrespective of whether a suitable job is found, benefits those with around four to twelve previous convictions.