The Effect of Teenage Employment on Delinquency and Problem Behaviors

Changes in Youth Smoking, 1976–2002

“…The propensity to smoke, despite its long-term harm and immediate financial cost, may represent a short-term coping mechanism to deal with difficult circumstances (Lloyd & Lucas, 1998) or a form of self-medication to deal with negative emotions (Anda et al, 1999). Youth in general and disadvantaged youth in particular face high levels of social strain because of the difficult transition from childhood to adulthood, and problems may worsen during periods of unemployment, suicide, crime, and youth violence (Blum, Buehring, & Shew, 2000;Paternoster, Bushway, & Brame, 2003;Scal, Ireland, & Borowsky, 2003;Unger, Hamilton, & Sussman, 2004). Increases in strain among youth may in turn raise their smoking.…”

Do Flood Mitigation and Natural Habitat Protection Employment Reduce Youth Offending?

“…Research has suggested that employment that includes mentorship and skills development (Paternoster et al 2003), has high job satisfaction (Uggen 1999) and develops social capital is particularly effective at promoting desistance from crime. These findings appear to hold true in the case of the Skill Mill.…”

“…However, scholarship in this area suggests the relationship between employment and desistance is complex and has yet to be understood and examined for all ages, types of offenders and forms of employment (Paternoster et al 2003;Sampson & Laub 1993;Uggen & Staff 2001;Wright & Cullen, 2004). The object of the present study is to add to the desistance literature by examining the association between employment and offending frequency for a sample of young offenders who are put to work in a pilot programme known as the BSkill Mill.^The Skill Mill employs young offenders to carry out flood mitigation and natural habitat protection projects for the community.…”

The Employment-Crime Association for Individuals Convicted of a Sexual Offense in their Youth

“…Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), several studies looked into the effect of (intensive) employment [2-4, 53, 87]. Paternoster et al [53] found mixed results for the relationship between intensive employment and criminal behavior in adolescents, dependent on the statistical method used. The first analysis showed a significantly reinforcing relationship between intensive employment and crime for adolescents.…”

“…For age, intensive employment is found to increase delinquency during adolescence and is associated with a reduction in offending after the transition into adulthood [53,64,73,74]. The influence of employment quality, rather than the mere status of employment, was established by a number of empirical studies [15,57,59,72,74,78,80,81].…”