Purpose The Prison Project is a nationwide prospective cohort study examining the development of criminal behavior and other life circumstances before, during, and after detention in the Netherlands. Methods The target population of the study consisted of all men, aged 18-65 years, and born in the Netherlands, who entered pre-trial detention between October 2010 and April 2011. Participants were questioned repeatedly during detention and six and 24 months after release. Self-reported information on a variety of topics was collected at each measurement, including demographics, lifestyle, personality traits, self-control, attitudes towards criminal justice actors, experiences during detention, and different life domains (i.e., recidivism, employment, financial and housing situation, health, family situation, social networks). Moreover, detailed longitudinal information was gathered from different official registration systems.
Social control theory links being employed with reduced criminal behaviour. In particular, the indirect social control generated by the perceived benefits of the current job are expected to underlie the work–crime association. Features specific to the emerging adult period, however, call into question the strength of the work–crime association during this new life stage. This study uses data from the Utrecht Study of Adolescent Development (USAD), a longitudinal self-report study among 669 men and women aged 18 to 24 at the start of the study to examine the extent to which working a paid job is associated with reduced levels of delinquency and crime, and the extent to which this association is conditional on individual job perceptions. We also test for gender differences in these associations. Results indicate that for men – but not for women – paid work is associated with lower levels of delinquency and crime, but only from age 24 onwards.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.