Wiesner 1
Juvenile Deviance and Work Career Outcomes For At-Risk Young Men
Theory
Entering the labor force is a central psychosocial task in young adulthood. Failure
in this transition often has negative economic and psychosocial consequences. More
recently, the field has begun to examine the impact of juvenile arrests on differing young
adult work career outcomes. Questions include whether detrimental effects of arrests on
measures of success or failure in vocational careers can be demonstrated after controlling
for other known risk factors, including low educational attainment, other deviant
behaviors, and mental health problems. Furthermore, it is not clear whether the age of
onset of criminal behavior is a salient predictor.
According to Hagan (1993), the process of “social or criminal embeddedness”
leaves delinquent youths without the necessary human and social capital to successfully
participate in legal employment once they reach the adult years. Here, the critical factor
appears to be engagement in offending during the adolescent years. In contrast, others
have posited that involvement with the criminal justice system (e.g., being convicted for
crimes, having a record of multiple arrests) is the most salient factor because formal
labeling will cause employers to exclude adult ex-offenders from employment
opportunities (Sampson & Laub, 1997). A recent test of these competing
conceptualizations suggested that arrests can lead to problems in the labor market above
and beyond the effects of current or past criminal activities (Bushway, 1998). Finally,
developmental theories of crime have posited that youth with an early onset of offending
are at an increased risk for experiencing various secondary problems and developmental
failures at later developmental stages, such as work failure, relative to late onset and
nonoffenders (e.g., Capaldi & Stoolmiller, 1999; Patterson & Yoeger, 1993).
Page 1 of 5 
Convention