College and Post-Carceral Job Searches
by Michael Dean Thompson
Every formerly incarcerated person has to deal with additional employment hurdles that impede their opportunities for successful reintegration. A recent study by the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University attempted to determine if Postsecondary Carceral Education (“PSCE”) improved employment opportunities and how race affected any changes. Since previous studies had employers reporting fears that people with criminal records would not have the skills necessary, as well as the risk that the same people would recidivate, the study’s authors wanted to see if positive credentials would neutralize stigmas and how they might “make desistance recognizable” to employers.
In order to delineate certain mitigation factors such as race and education level, the study examined three educational levels (GED, a postsecondary certificate, and a bachelor’s degree) dispersed across a series of generated applicants bearing names that signaled Black race (names such as Rasheed Jefferson that “sound” Black) or white-sounding names. Ninety-five percent (95%) of the study’s respondents indicated that they understood the degree was earned while incarcerated.
The results were hopeful but bore challenges. On the core question, as well as some others, the study used a Likert scale (1 to 5) to ask the likelihood that the given resume would receive a callback for a job in a call center. The résumés with only a GED educational achievement provided a baseline. Both sets of applicants saw some improvement with the PSCE certificate and were more likely to receive a callback than did the GED group. That trend continued through to the bachelor’s degree for the first model. According to the study, “Respondents did not indicate a willingness to call back applicants with names intended to signal Black race at significantly different rates than applicants with names intended to signal white race.”
The second model, which took into account certain “mediators,” was different. The mediators eliminated a significant portion of the gains made by the PSCE certificate when the applicants with Black-sounding names held a bachelor’s degree while having no major impact on the candidates with a postsecondary certificate. The four mediating factors were workplace safety threat, recidivism risk, “hardworkingness,” and productivity. The two overwhelmingly powerful mediators were workplace safety threat and productivity, about 40% and 38% of the total effect, respectively.
There were several significant caveats with regard to the study. First, the hiring managers were not limited to those with experience hiring call center employees. They may then have misjudged the job requirements. In addition, the use of names to signal race is obviously imperfect and may unintentionally signal socioeconomic status. The fact that the mediated bachelor’s degree candidates did worse than those with a PSCE certificate may have indicated that the bachelor’s recipients were considered overqualified for the position, generating secondary signals such as a lack of ambition or possible future job dissatisfaction. Finally, the bachelor’s degree in General Studies may not have been familiar to the hiring managers who may have devalued the degree.
The study shows that a postsecondary carceral education is beneficial in all cases, even when mitigated by the mediating factors. Meanwhile, the American job market is shifting so that a full 75% of new jobs created require a bachelor’s degree at the minimum. A formerly incarcerated job seeker therefore improves their job opportunities with each PSCE credential. A bachelor’s degree broadens the field of job choices, increasing the chance of success. As the federal government has opened eligibility for the incarcerated to pursue PSCE credentials, taking that path becomes critical for a future beyond prison.
Source: Criminology
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