Volume 29, Number 1 (Winter) 1994
Waldfogel, Joel. 1994. "The Effect of Criminal Conviction on Income and the Trust 'Reposed in the Workmen'." Journal of Human Resources 29(1):62-81.
Using panel data on federal offenders we examine the effects of conviction on offenders' employment and income. First-time conviction reduces employment probabilities by 5 percentage points and has a significantly depressing effect on income (as much as -30 percent), especially for offenders whose pre-conviction jobs apparently require trust or who are sent to prison. Significant conviction effects on income are large compared with state-imposed penalties.
The author is a professor of economics at Yale University. He is grateful to David Green, John Pencavel, Scott Smart, Susan R. Smart, John Shoven, Joe Tracy, Frank Wolak, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. He received financial support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation (through the Stanford Law School), and the United States Sentencing Commission. He thanks Michael Block, John Lott, Scott Lyden, and Bill Rhodes for helping to get data from the Sentencing Commission. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning in August 1994 through August 1997 from the author at the following address: Department of Economics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520.
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