A Signaling Perspective on EmploymentBased Reentry Programming

Acriminal history is an undeniably excellent predictor of future criminal behavior (Gendreau, Little, and Goggin, 1996). Yet despite stability in offending over time, most offenders, even those with serious criminal histories, eventually desist from crime (Brame, Bushway, and Paternoster, 2003; Kurlychek, Brame, and Bushway, 2006, 2007, in press; Langan and Levin, 2002; Maruna, 2001). Employment-based reentry programs are designed and evaluated with an eye toward hastening the desistance process for individuals with criminal history records (Drake, Aos, and Miller, 2009). In other words, these programs rely on employment and training to causally lower an individual’s likelihood of recidivism. Employment is an obvious starting point in the reentry process because it is the major “routine activity” of most adults, and individuals who are exiting prison look to work as their major source of legitimate income (Bucklen and Zajac, 2009; LeBel, Burnett, Maruna, and Bushway, 2008). Yet the most recent meta-analysis of experimental evaluations of noncustodial employment programs for individuals with a criminal history finds that