The Study of Racialism

triguy · Superuser Joined: 27 Apr 2005 {Posts: 878 }

For those who don't believe in affirmative action or believe the word "whining" is appropriate when people speak of workplace discrimination:

New York Times
June 17, 2005
Race a Factor in Job Offers for Ex-Convicts
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER

White men with prison records receive far more offers for entry-level jobs in New York City than black men with identical records, and are offered jobs just as often - if not more so - than black men who have never been arrested, according to a new study by two Princeton professors.

The study, the first to assess the effect of race on job searches by ex-convicts, also found that black men who had never been in trouble with the law were about half as likely as whites with similar backgrounds to get a job offer or a callback.

Black men whose job applications stated that they had spent time in prison were only about one-third as likely as white men with similar applications to get a positive response.

For every 10 white men without convictions who got a job offer or callback, more than 7 white men with prison records also did, the study found. But the difference grew far larger for black applicants: For every 10 black men without criminal convictions, only about 3 with records got offers or callbacks.

"It takes a black ex-offender three times as long to receive a callback or a job offer," said Devah Pager, an assistant professor of sociology and one of the study's two authors.

More than 630,000 people nationwide leave prison each year, including 27,000 in New York State, most of whom are from New York City, said Jeremy Travis, the president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which announced the results of the study yesterday. Nationwide, one in three black men with only a high school diploma will go to prison before turning 40, Professor Pager said.

Beginning in February 2004, Professor Pager and the study's other author, Bruce Western, also a sociology professor, sent 13 white, black and Latino men posing as ex-convicts to more than 3,500 job interviews throughout the city, most of them in Manhattan. (The study did not form any conclusions about Latino ex-convicts.) Saying they had completed only high school, they applied for a broad spectrum of jobs, from couriers to cashiers, deli clerks to telemarketers.

The study's authors said they took pains to minimize all applicants' nonracial differences - in personality, interpersonal skills, education levels, work history and the neighborhoods where they said they lived.

Applicants told prospective employers that they had spent 18 months in prison on a drug conviction, and listed a parole officer as a reference, the study said. The city's correction commissioner, Martin F. Horn, said he hoped the study would persuade elected officials to do more to integrate former prisoners back into society. "The world continues to be a very hard place for ex-offenders to succeed in," he said in an interview, "and it's clear that it's harder still if you're a black ex-offender."

Because ex-convicts with jobs are far less likely to commit further crimes, r, the ability to find work "is every bit as important as putting more police officers on the street," Mr. Horn said.

The chairwoman of the New York City Commission on Human Rights, Patricia L. Gatling, said that beginning next year, her office would invite employers willing to hire people who have been in prison to informal discussions about how to break down the racial disparities in hiring found by the Princeton study.