Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Exploitation of a Criminal Record: Coercive Work while on Parole

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

During the period following release from prison, people on parole may experience coercive employment as a result of their parole-mandated work requirements. Coercive employment occurs when people find themselves outside the bounds of legal labor protections, forced to work in conditions under either the explicit or perceived threat of criminal justice repercussions should they refuse. These differential power dynamics create space for the exploitation of already marginalized laboring populations, which has lasting implications for socioeconomic inequality and recidivism. The proposed project will be the first to systematically document the prevalence of coercive work in the period following release from prison, and will explore both the lived experience of coercive work and parolees? perceptions of employment and punishment after prison. Additionally, this project will investigate how people navigate the looming threat of criminal justice sanctions as tied to employment requirements while on parole. To date, reentry policymakers and scholars alike have focused on the hiring process, as evidenced by the recent movement to ?Ban the Box;? however, this project draws attention to the reality that barriers to reentry do not stop at the moment of hire but, rather, continue on throughout the employment process. Through two phases of original data collection with adults on parole in Los Angeles County, this project will provide insight into the prevalence and experience of coercive work while on parole. First, 40 in-depth qualitative interviews with active parolees will provide a nuanced understanding of the ways coercive work manifests while on community supervision, what that experience is like, and how parolees perceive work requirements and punishment after prison. Second, quantitative data will be obtained through a large-scale web survey. In order to obtain estimates of coercive work that are representative of adults on parole in Los Angeles County, survey participant recruitment will utilize a Respondent-Driven Sampling (RDS) design, one of the most effective strategies for studying hard-to-reach populations. This study will combine an in-person RDS recruitment method with the web survey for a mixed methods approach to studying employment among former prisoners that may have implications for future research on other hidden populations. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.