This study evaluates the relationship between relative employment perceptions within licit and illicit markets and offending. Relative labor market utility (RLMU) accounts for the importance and perceived quality of work characteristics within each market. Ordered-logistic regression models evaluate the association between RLMU and willingness to commit crime amongst a nationwide (U.S.) sample. Analyses also consider mean differences in work characteristics’ importance and relative quality to identify which characteristics most incentivize crime. Findings suggest that RLMU is negatively associated with offending and improves upon a precedent measure. Several work characteristics also more strongly incentivize offending. Those interested in reducing crime through employment should focus on improving RLMU perceptions. Suggestions for doing this in practice and recommendations for future research are provided.
AganA. Y.MakowskyM. D. (2018). The minimum wage, EITC, and criminal recidivism (No. w25116). National Bureau of Economic Research.
2.
AndersonE. (2000). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. WW Norton & Company.
3.
AnwarS.LoughranT. A. (2011). Testing a Bayesian learning theory of deterrence among serious juvenile offenders. Criminology, 49(3), 667–698.
4.
ApelR.HorneyJ. (2017). How and why does work matter? Employment conditions, routine activities, and crime among adult male offenders. Criminology, 55(2), 307–343.
5.
BaumerE. P.GustafsonR. (2007). Social organization and instrumental crime: Assessing the empirical validity of classic and contemporary anomie theories. Criminology, 45(3), 617–663.
6.
BeauchampA.ChanS. (2014). The minimum wage and crime. The BE Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 14(3), 1213–1235.
7.
BeckerG. (1968). Crime and punishment: An economic analysis. The Journal of Political Economy, 76(2), 169–217.
BerinskyA. J.MargolisM. F.SancesM. W. (2014). Separating the shirkers from the workers? Making sure respondents pay attention on self-administered surveys. AmericanJournal of Political Science, 58(3), 739–753.
10.
BoasT. C.ChristensonD. P.GlickD. M. (2020). Recruiting large online samples in the United States and India: Facebook, mechanical Turk, and Qualtrics. Political Science Research and Methods, 8(2), 232–250.
11.
BragaA. A.TurchanB. S.PapachristosA. V.HureauD. M. (2019). Hot spots policing and crime reduction: An update of an ongoing systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 15, 289–311.
12.
BraunC. (2019). Crime and the minimum wage. Review of Economic Dynamics, 32, 122–152.
13.
BushwayS. D.ApelR. (2012). A signaling perspective on employment-based reentry programming: Training completion as a desistance signal. Criminology & Cublic Policy, 11(1), 21–50.
14.
CazesS.HijzenA.Saint-MartinA. (2015). Measuring and assessing job quality: The OECD job quality framework (OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, 174). OECD Publishing.
15.
ClarkA. E. (1998). Measures of job satisfaction: What makes a good job? Evidence from OECD countries (No. 34). OECD Publishing.
16.
ClowardR. A.OhlinL. E. (1960). Delinquency and opportunity: A study of delinquent gangs. Free Press.
17.
CoppockA.LeeperT. J.MullinixK. J. (2018). Generalizability of heterogeneous treatment effect estimates across samples. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 115(49), 12441–12446.
18.
CornishD.ClarkeR. (1986). The reasoning criminal: Rational choice perspectives on offending. Springer-Verlag.
19.
CrutchfieldR. D. (2014). Get a job: Labor markets, economic opportunity, and crime. NYU Press.
20.
CrutchfieldR. D.PitchfordS. R. (1997). Work and crime: The effects of labor stratification. Social Forces, 76(1), 93–118.
21.
CullenZ.DobbieW.HoffmanM. (2023). Increasing the demand for workers with a criminal record. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 138(1), 103–150.
22.
EhrlichI. (1973). Participation in illegitimate activities: A theoretical and empirical investigation. The Journal of Political Economy, 81(3), 521–565.
23.
FinlayK.Mueller-SmithM.StreetB. (2023). Criminal justice involvement, self-employment, and barriers in recent public policy. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 42(1), 11–34.
24.
GottfredsonM. R.HirschiT. (1990). A general theory of crime. Stanford University Press.
25.
GouldE. D.WeinbergB. A.MustardD. B. (2002). Crime rates and local labor market opportunities in the United States: 1979–1997. Review of Economics and Statistics, 84(1), 45–61.
26.
GroggerJ. (1998). Market wages and youth crime. Journal of Labor Economics, 16(4), 756–791.
27.
GundersenC.ZiliakJ. P. (2018). Food insecurity research in the United States: Where we have been and where we need to go. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 40(1), 119–135.
28.
HashimotoM. (1987). The minimum wage law and youth crimes: Time-series evidence. The Journal of Law and Economics, 30(2), 443–464.
HirschiT. (1969). Causes of delinquency. University California Press.
31.
HolzmanH. R. (1982). The rationalistic opportunity perspective on criminal behavior: Toward a reformulation of the theoretical basis for the notion of property crime as work. Crime & Delinquency, 28(2), 233–246.
32.
HorneyJ.OsgoodD. W.MarshallI. H. (1995). Criminal careers in the short-term: Intra-individual variability in crime and its relation to local life circumstances. American Sociological Review, 60(5), 655–673.
33.
JacobsB. A. (2017). Robbing drug dealers: Violence beyond the law. Routledge.
34.
JaynesC. M. (2020). The relationship between job quality and crime: Examining heterogeneity in treatment and treatment effect. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 57(6), 693–740.
35.
JaynesC. M.LeeJ. G.N. FranksH. (2022). Evaluating racial and ethnic invariance among the correlates of guilty pleas: A focus on the effect of court legitimacy, attorney type, satisfaction, and plea-offer evaluation. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 61, 335–374. https://doi.org/00224278221135544
36.
JencksC.PermanL.RainwaterL. (1988). What is a good job? A new measure of labor-market success. American Journal of Sociology, 93(6), 1322–1357.
37.
KallebergA. L. (1977). Work values and job rewards: A theory of job satisfaction. American Sociological Review, 42(1), 124–143.
38.
KallebergA. L. (2011). Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment Systems in the United States, 1970s-2000s. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
39.
KallebergA. L. (2012). Job quality and precarious work: Clarifications, controversies, and challenges. Work and Occupations, 39(4), 427–448.
40.
KallebergA. L.VaiseyS. (2005). Pathways to a good job: Perceived work quality among the machinists in North America. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 43(3), 431–454.
41.
KatzJ. (1988). Seductions of crime. Basic Books.
42.
KennedyJ. P.RorieM.BensonM. L. (2021). COVID-19 frauds: An exploratory study of victimization during a global crisis. Criminology & Public Policy, 20(3), 493–543.
43.
KimchiA. (2019). Investigating the assignment of probation conditions: Heterogeneity and the role of race and ethnicity. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 35, 715–745.
44.
LaubJ. H.SampsonR. J. (2003). Shared beginnings, divergent lives. Harvard University Press.
45.
LetkemannP. (1973). Crime as work. Prentice Hall.
46.
LevittS. D.VenkateshS. A. (2000). An economic analysis of a drug-selling gang’s finances. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115(3), 755–789.
47.
LochnerL. (2004). Education, work, and crime: A human capital approach. International Economic Review, 45(3), 811–843.
48.
LoughranT. A.NguyenH.PiqueroA. R.FaganJ. (2013). The returns to criminal capital. American Sociological Review, 78(6), 925–948.
49.
LoughranT. A.PiqueroA. R.FaganJ.MulveyE. P. (2012). Differential deterrence: Studying heterogeneity and changes in perceptual deterrence among serious youthful offenders. Crime & Delinquency, 58(1), 3–27.
50.
LuckenbillD. F.BestJ. (1981). Careers in deviance and respectability: The analogy’s limitations. Social Problems, 29(2), 197–206.
51.
MatsuedaR. L.GartnerR.PiliavinI.PolakowskiM. (1992). The prestige of criminal and conventional occupations: A subcultural model of criminal activity. American Sociological Review, 57(6), 752–770.
52.
McCarthyB.HaganJ. (2001). When crime pays: Capital, competence, and criminal success. Social forces, 79(3), 1035–1060.
53.
McCarthyB.HaganJ. (2005). Danger and the decision to offend. Social Forces, 83(3), 1065–1096.
54.
MeisenhelderT. (1977). An exploratory study of exiting from criminal careers. Criminology, 15(3), 319–334.
55.
MillerW. B. (1958). Lower class culture as a generating milieu of gang delinquency. Journal of Social Issues, 14(3), 5–19.
56.
MouleR. K.Jr.BurrussG. W.JaynesC. M.WeaverC.FairchildR. (2022). Concern, cynicism, and the coronavirus: Assessing the influence of instrumental and normative factors on individual defiance of COVID-19 mitigation guidelines. Crime & Delinquency, 68(8), 1320–1346.
57.
MyersS. L.Jr. (1983). Estimating the economic model of crime: Employment versus punishment effects. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 98(1), 157–166.
58.
MyersS. L.Jr. (1984). Do better wages reduce crime? A research note. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 43(2), 191–195.
59.
NaginD. S. (2007). Moving choice to center stage in criminological research and theory. Criminology, 45(2), 259–272.
60.
NaginD. S. (2013). Deterrence in the twenty-first century. Crime and Justice, 42(1), 199–263.
61.
NaginD. S.PaternosterR. (1994). Personal capital and social control: The deterrence implications of a theory of individual differences in criminal offending. Criminology, 32(4), 581–606.
NguyenH. (2020). On the conceptualization of criminal capital. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 57(2), 182–216.
64.
NguyenH.LoughranT. A. (2017). On the reliability and validity of self-reported illegal earnings: Implications for the study of criminal achievement. Criminology, 55(3), 575–602.
65.
NguyenH.LoughranT. A.MorselliC.OuelletF. (2021). Offending frequency and responses to illegal monetary incentives. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 38, 239–265.
66.
PaternosterR. (2010). How much do we really know about criminal deterrence. Journal of Criminal Lab and Criminology, 100(3), 765–824.
67.
PaternosterR.BachmanR.KerrisonE.O’connellD.SmithL. (2016). Desistance from crime and identity: An empirical test with survival time. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 43(9), 1204–1224.
PezzinL. E. (1995). Earnings prospects, matching effects, and the decision to terminate a criminal career. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 11, 29–50.
71.
PogarskyG. (2002). Identifying “deterrable” offenders: Implications for research on deterrence. Justice Quarterly, 19(3), 431–452.
72.
ReevesA.McKeeM.MackenbachJ.WhiteheadM.StucklerD. (2017). Introduction of a national minimum wage reduced depressive symptoms in low-wage workers: A quasi-natural experiment in the UK. Health Economics, 26(5), 639–655.
73.
ReuterP.MacCounR.MurphyP.AbrahamseA.SimonB. (1990). Money from crime: A study of the economics of drug dealing in Washington, DC. Rand.
74.
SampsonR. J.LaubJ. H. (1993). Crime in the making: Pathways and turning points through life. Harvard University Press.
75.
ShoverN. (1996). Great pretenders: Pursuits and careers of persistent thieves. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
76.
ShoverN.ThompsonC. Y. (1992). Age, differential expectations, and crime desistance. Criminology, 30(1), 89–104.
77.
SimonsR. L.StewartE.GordonL. C.CongerR. D.ElderG. H.Jr. (2002). A test of life-course explanations for stability and change in antisocial behavior from adolescence to young adulthood. Criminology, 40(2), 401–434.
78.
SpinellaM. (2007). Normative data and a short form of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. International Journal of Neuroscience, 117(3), 359–368.
79.
SteffensmeierD. J.UlmerJ. T. (2005). Confessions of a dying thief: Understanding criminal careers and criminal enterprise. Transaction Publishers.
80.
SullivanC. J.McGloinJ. M.PrattT. C.PiqueroA. R. (2006). Rethinking the “norm” of offender generality: Investigating specialization in the short-term. Criminology, 44(1), 199–233.
81.
SullivanM. L. (1989). “Getting paid”: Youth crime and work in the inner city. Cornell University Press.
82.
SutherlandE. H. (1937). The professional thief. University of Chicago Press.
83.
ThomasK. J.BaumerE. P.LoughranT. A. (2022). Structural predictors of choice: Testing a multilevel rational choice theory of crime. Criminology, 60(4), 606–636.
84.
ThompsonM.UggenC. (2012). Dealers, thieves, and the common determinants of drug and nondrug illegal earnings. Criminology, 50(4), 1057–1087.
85.
TremblayP.MorselliC. (2000). Patterns in criminal achievement: Wilson and Abrahamse revisited. Criminology, 38(2), 633–657.
86.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2023). Labor force statistics from the current population survey. Division of Labor Force Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/cps/
UggenC. (1999). Ex-offenders and the conformist alternative: A job quality model of work and crime. Social Problems, 46(1), 127–151.
89.
UggenC.ThompsonM. (2003). The socioeconomic determinants of ill-gotten gains: Within-person changes in drug use and illegal earnings. American Journal of Sociology, 109(1), 146–185.
90.
VazsonyiA. T.MikuškaJ.KelleyE. L. (2017). It’s time: A meta-analysis on the self-control-deviance link. Journal of Criminal Justice, 48, 48–63.
91.
WadsworthT. (2006). The meaning of work: Conceptualizing the deterrent effect of employment on crime among young adults. Sociological Perspectives, 49(3), 343–368.
92.
WilliamsJ.SicklesR. C. (2002). An analysis of the crime as work model: Evidence from the 1958 Philadelphia birth cohort study. Journal of Human Resources, 37(3), 479–509.
93.
WilliamsK. R.HawkinsR. (1986). Perceptual research on general deterrence: A critical review. Law and Society Review, 20(4), 545–572.
