Protective State Policies and the Employment of Fathers with Criminal Records

Abstract

A criminal record can be a serious impediment to securing stable employment, with negative implications for the economic stability of individuals and their families. State policies intended to address this issue have had mixed results, however. Using panel data from the Fragile Families study merged with longitudinal data on state-level policies, this study investigates the association between criminal record based employment discrimination policies and the employment of men both with and without criminal records. These state policies broadly regulate what kinds of records can be legally used for hiring and licensing decisions, but have received little attention in prior research. Findings indicate that men with criminal records were less likely to be working if they lived in states with more policies in place to regulate the legal use of those records. Consistent with research linking policies regulating access to records to racial discrimination, black men living in protective states reported this employment penalty even if they did not have criminal records themselves. Thus, these policies, at best, may fail to disrupt entrenched employment disparities and, at worst, may exacerbate racial discrimination.