MARKED: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration

The mark of a criminal record is one of the most enduring consequences of contact with the criminal justice system within the United States. In the book MARKED: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration, the sociologist Devah Pager attempts to show how the possession of a criminal record lowers one’s chances of employment and, combined with the effect of race, unfairly penalizes African American males compared with their white counterparts. Because this demographic is overrepresented in the U.S. prison population, studies in prisoner reintegration cannot be treated separately from the question of race and discrimination. There are 2.2 million Americans behind bars, enough to staff all the outlets of McDonalds, Starbucks, and Walmarts worldwide. Since the dawn of a mass ...