Skip to main content
Log in

Post-release Employment and Recidivism in Norway

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Quantitative Criminology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objectives

Investigate the transition from prison to employment and the relationship between post-release employment and recidivism.

Methods

We use a sample of every person released from Norwegian prisons in 2003 (N = 7,476), and they are followed through 2006 with monthly measures. We estimate the time to recidivism using discrete time survival models, conditioning upon both pre-release characteristics and post-release time-varying covariates (employment, educational enrollment and participation in labor market programs).

Results

The majority of former inmates were employed at some point in our data window, but it took approximately 30 months for 30% of them to become employed. The hazard of recidivism is substantially lower (0.12, p < .001) when former inmates are employed compared with unemployed, although observable individual characteristics can account for a large share of this association (0.50, p < .001, after adjustment). The negative association between employment and recidivism remains when controlling for other post-release statuses. Although post-release employment periods are associated with a lower risk of recidivism for all categories of principal offence, the magnitude of the association varies. The association is smaller for those receiving social benefits.

Conclusion

The findings are consistent with theories suggesting that employment reduces the risk of recidivism.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Importantly, such programs might have an effect regardless of whether they improve employability.

  2. Alternative ways of dealing with such censoring is to (1) only include months without imprisonment in the analysis, or (2) include the exposure time as a covariate in the model. We have tested each of these approaches, and the results are virtually identical across models.

  3. Some individuals have no income because they are imprisoned, but note that we include a measure of the time spent in prison during the year. Thus, we control for imprisonment in the regression analysis.

  4. The reincarceration rate is far lower than our main measure of recidivism (the date a new offence is committed). Ignoring censoring at recidivism would have yielded approximately 24% of the sample reincarcerated (not reported in tables) by the end of 2006.

  5. The first major wave of immigration to Norway began in the 1970s. For this reason, the second generation of immigrants (two immigrant parents) is very young, predominantly below the age of 30 (Statistics Norway, 2010).

  6. The results might be affected by how the function of time is specified, so we compared models with linear, quadratic and cubic polynomials of time as well as a model with separate dummies for each month. The quadratic model gave the best relative fit, and the estimate for post-release employment did not change notably across these models. Thus, we apply models with a quadratic function of time throughout.

  7. The estimates from the background characteristics are all as expected based on the general notion that more resources and social integration are associated with decreasing recidivism. For example, educational level, parents’ educational level, and income are negatively associated with recidivism. Because these variables are not of primary interest for this analysis (we only want to control for these characteristics), we do not discuss them further.

  8. One might argue that a job could be associated with less recidivism only if one’s earnings are enough to cover basic needs; otherwise, social assistance is still needed. We included an interaction term to check this assumption. For those receiving social benefits, post-release employment gives an odds ratio of recidivism of exp(−.722 + .311) = 0.66, whereas post-release employment gives an odds ratio of exp(−.722) = 0.48 for those not receiving social assistance.

  9. According to OECD statistics (URL: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/crimedata.html), the rates for e.g. murder, assault and burglary are low, while the rate for theft is high. It should be acknowledged that comparisons of crime rates across countries are highly problematic, so this is at best a rough indication.

References

  • Allison PD (1995) Survival analysis using the SAS system: a practical guide. SAS Institute, Cary, NC

    Google Scholar 

  • Baumer E (1997) Levels and predictors of recidivism: the Malta experience. Criminology 35:601–628

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Becker G (1993) Nobel lecture: the economic way of looking at behavior. J Polit Econ 101:385–409

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berg MT, Huebner BM (2010) Reentry and the ties that bind: an examination of social ties, employment and recidivism. Justice Q 28:382–410

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berk RA, Lenihan KJ, Rossi PH (1980) Crime and poverty: some experimental evidence from ex-offenders. Am Sociol Rev 45:766–789

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bloom D (2006) Employment-focused programs for ex-prisoners. What have we learned, what are we learning, and where should we go from here? MDRC, New York, http://www.mdrc.org/publications/435/full.pdf

  • Bushway S, Reuter P (1997) Labor markets and crime risk factors: Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland

  • Cleveland WS, Gross E, Shyu WM (1993) Local regression models. In: Chambers JM, Hastie TJ (eds) Statistical models in S. Chapman and Hall, New York, pp 309–376

    Google Scholar 

  • Ehrlich I (1973) Participation in illegitimate activities: a theoretical and empirical investigation. J Polit Econ 81:531–567

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Entorf H (2009) Crime and the labour market: evidence from a survey of inmates, ZEW Discussion Paper No. 08-131

  • Farrall S, Calverley A (2006) Understanding desistance from crime. Open University Press, Maidenhead

  • Felson M (1998) Crime and everyday life, 2nd edn. Pine Forge, Thousand Oaks

  • Giordano PC, Cernkovich SA, Rudolph JL (2002) Gender, crime, and desistance: towards a theory of cognitive transformation. Am J Sociol 107:990–1064

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grogger J (1995) The effect of arrests on the employment and earnings of young men. Q J Econ 110:51–71

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrison B, Scheher RC (2004) Offenders and post-release jobs: variables influencing success and failure. J Offender Rehabil 39:35–68

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirschi T (1969) Causes of delinquency. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA

    Google Scholar 

  • Horney J, Osgood DW, Marshall IH (1995) Criminal careers in the short-term: intra-individual variability in crime and its relation to local life circumstances. Am Sociol Rev 60:655–673

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hosmer DH, Lemeshow S (1999) Applied survival analysis. Regression modeling of time to event data. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Langan PA, Levin DJ (2002) Recidivism of prisoners released in 1994. US Department of Justice, Washington

    Google Scholar 

  • Laub JH, Sampson RJ (2003) Shared beginnings, divergent lives: delinquent boys to age 70. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyngstad TH, Skardhamar T (2011) Nordic register data and their untapped potential for criminological knowledge. In: Tonry M, Lappi-Seppälä T (eds) Crime & justice: a review of research. Chicago University Press, Chicago, pp 613–645

    Google Scholar 

  • Maruna S (2001) Making good: how ex-convicts reform and rebuild their lives. American Psychological Association, Washington

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mears DP, Wang X, Hay C, Bales WD (2008) Social ecology and recidivism: implications for prisoner reentry. Criminology 46:301–340

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merton RK (1968) Social structure and anomie. In: Merton RK (ed) Social theory and social structure (1968 enlarged edition ed). The Free Press, New York, pp 185–214

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Donnell I, Baumer EP, Hughes N (2008) Recidivism in the Republic of Ireland. Criminol Crim Justice 8:123–146

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pager D (2003) The mark of a criminal record. Am J Sociol 108:937–975

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Piquero AR, Brame R, Mazerolle P, Haapanen R (2002) Crime in emerging adulthood. Criminology 40:137–169

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pratt J (2008) Scandinavian exceptionalism in an era of excess. Part I: the nature and roots of Scandinavian exceptionalism. Br J Criminol 48:119–137

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raphael S (2011) Incarceration and prisoner reentry in the United States. Ann Am Acad Pol Soc Sci 635:192–215

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Røed K, Raaum O (2003) Administrative registers—unexplored reservoirs of scientific knowledge? Econ J 113:258–281

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sedgley NH, Scott CE, Williams NA, Derrick FW (2008) Prison’s dilemma: do Education and jobs programmes affect recidivism? Economica 77:1–21

    Google Scholar 

  • Skardhamar T (2003) Inmates’ social background and living conditions. J Scand Stud Criminol Crime Prev 4:39–56

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Statistics Norway (2010) Immigration and immigrants 2010. Oslo, Statistics Norway

    Google Scholar 

  • Uggen C (2000) Work as a turning point in the life course of criminals: a duration model of age, employment, and recidivism. Am Sociol Rev 67:529–546

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Uggen C, Manza J, Angela B (2004) Less than the average citizen: stigma, role transition, and the civic reintegration of convicted felons. In: Maruna S, Immarigeon R (eds) After crime and punishment: pathways to offender reintegration. Willan Publishing, Cullompton, Devon, pp 261–293

    Google Scholar 

  • Visher CA, Travis J (2003) Transitions from prison to community: understanding individual pathways. Annu Rev Sociol 29:89–113

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Visher CA, Winterfield L, Coggeshapp MB (2005) Ex-offender employment programs and recidivism: a meta-analysis. J Exp Criminol 1:295–316

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Visher C, Debus S, Yahner J (2008) Employment after prison: a longitudinal study of releasees in three states, Research Brief, October 2008: Urban Institute, Justice Policy Center

  • Warr M (1998) Life-course transitions and desistance from crime. Criminology 36:183–216

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wartna BSJ, Nijssen LTJ (2006) National studies on recidivism: an inventory of large-scale recidivism research in 33 European Countries. WODC, The Hague

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson DB, Gallagher CA, MacKenzie DL (2000) A meta-analysis of corrections-based education, vocation, and work programs for adult offenders. J Res Crime Delinq 37:347–368

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to seminar participants for helpful comments and discussions and to Erling Holmøy, Willy Pedersen, Steven Messner and two anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this paper. We gratefully appreciate financial support from the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and the Police, the Norwegian Research Council, and Statistics Norway for this project.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Torbjørn Skardhamar.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Skardhamar, T., Telle, K. Post-release Employment and Recidivism in Norway. J Quant Criminol 28, 629–649 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-012-9166-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-012-9166-x

Keywords

Navigation