NCJ Number
93166
Date Published
1983
Length
18 pages
Annotation
A Vera Institute survey of 900 males arrested in Brooklyn (N.Y.) in the summer of 1979 and interviews with high-risk youths in three Brooklyn neighborhoods revealed that positive employment experiences and job opportunities served as an inducement for adolescents to abandon high-risk street crime.
Abstract
Interviews showed that youths perceived robbery as posing the greatest risk, closely followed by burglary and 'grab and run.' Con games were rated lowest in terms of arrest and injury risk, and both shoplifting and selling marijuana were seen to pose little risk. Skills required and potential return also affected youths' perceptions of crime opportunities. Because opportunities for lucrative crime are in fact severely limited, most street criminals settle for low-return, sporadic efforts. Moreover, opportunities for some street crimes erode with repetition. Jobs that teenagers are able to find in high-risk neighborhoods are low-paying, occasional, and short-term, such as messenger or delivery work. These scarce opportunities improve for youth in their late teens, and there is further gradual improvement as they move into their twenties, although most jobs remain in the secondary market. While only 1 out of 10 of the arrested 16 and 17-year-olds had found employment offering any sort of work-related benefit, well over half of the defendants over 25 and older reported having recently tried jobs with work-related benefits. Thus, poor inner city youths engage in high-risk income crimes before significant job opportunities are available and abandon or at least moderate participation in crime after they accumulate experience in the labor market and job opportunities have improved considerably. Crime control policies should advance rather than retard this natural process. Increasing the severity of punishment and selective incapacitation fail to achieve this end. Tables and 21 footnotes are provided.