How and why does work matter? employment conditions, routine activities, and crime among adult male offenders*

Robert Apel, Julie Horney

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

80 Scopus citations

Abstract

An inverse relationship between employment and crime is well established, although the mechanisms that account for the correlation remain poorly understood. In the current study, we investigate the role of work quality, measured objectively (hours, income) as well as subjectively (commitment). A routine activities perspective is proposed for the work–crime relationship, and it inspires hypotheses about the way that work reduces crime indirectly, in part, through unstructured leisure and substance-using behaviors that tend to carry situational inducements to offend. The results derive from within-person analyses of monthly data provided by adult male offenders recently admitted to state prison in the Second Nebraska Inmate Study (N = 717; NT = 21,965). The findings indicate that employment significantly reduces self-report crime but only when employed men report strong commitment to their jobs, whereas other work characteristics are unrelated to crime. This indicates that, among serious criminally involved men, the subjective experience of work takes priority over its objective characteristics. The results also indicate that routine activities only partly mediate the relationship among work, job commitment, and crime, whereas the majority of the work–crime relationship remains unmediated.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)307-343
Number of pages37
JournalCriminology
Volume55
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2017

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Pathology and Forensic Medicine
  • Law

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'How and why does work matter? employment conditions, routine activities, and crime among adult male offenders*'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this