White-Collars and Black Sheep: A Twenty-Year Criminological Follow-Up of White-Collar Ex-Offenders
| Author | Keith Soothill,Gabriel Escarela,Brian Francis |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486589903200307 |
| Published date | 01 December 1999 |
| Date | 01 December 1999 |
White-Collars
and
Black Sheep: A Twenty-
Year
Criminological Follow-Up
of
White-
Collar Ex-Offenders
Keith Sooth ill, Brian Francis and Gabriel Escarela
Lancaster
University
This paper describes a further
analysis
of
the outcome
of
a
twenty-year
criminological follow-up
of
aconsecutive series
of
348 male ex-
offenders seeking
white-collar
employment
who
were
offered
the
services
of
a specialist employment agency (APEX) in the early I970s.
This
analysis
shows the value of a more sophisticated statistical
analysis
which combines survival
analysis
with smoothing models: this provides
new insights
into
the theoretical understanding
of
the data.There is
evidence that remaining in contact with the organisation,irrespective
of
whether
asuitable job is found, benefits those
with
around
four
to
twelve previous convictions.
The
Apex Trust was set up originally in 1965 as an employment agency for ex
...
offenders.
The
first project involved an experimental study investigating
the
effect
of finding employment after release for
the
general
run
of
the
prison population
(Soorhill, 1974). In
the
early 1970s
the
operation of
the
placing service became
more focused and a consecutive series of ex
...
offenders
seeking
white
....
coUar
employment
approached
the
organisation for help.
The
aim was to assist these ex
...
offenders
until
suitable employment was found. It is important to emphasise
that
the
offenders in
this study may
not
necessarily have committed white
...
collar offences; in fact our
sample was a mixture of property, violent
and
white
...
collar criminals. In
the
event,
45 per
cent
of
the
series were eventually placed
and
started work as a direct result of
the
placing efforts made by
the
organisation.
The
range of placing effort expended
was enormous. For
the
388 clients in
the
series, over 18,000 separate contacts were
made to employers. Few projects seeking work for ex
...
offenders could have
been
so
persistent
in
their
efforts
on
behalf
of
their
clients
and
so
thorough
in
their
documentation of
their
efforts. Elsewhere (Soothill, 1976; 1981) there have
been
reports
of
the
earlier
follow
...
up studies
relating
to
this
series
of
ex
...
offenders.
Currently we are considering a
twenry
....
year
criminological follow
...
up. This considers
We appreciate the financial support from the Nuffield Foundation for the original study and
from CONACYT, Mexico for sponsoring Gabriel Escarela. An earlier version of this paper
was presented at the
25th
AASW
National Conference in Canberra, Australia in September,
1997. We are also appreciative of the helpful comments from two anonymous referees.
Address
for
correspondence.
Professor
K.
SoothiU,
Department
of
Applied
Social
Science,
Lancaster
University,
Cartmel
College,
Lancaster
LAl
4YL, U.K.
THE AUSTRALIAN
AND
NEW
ZEALAND JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
VOLUME32
NUMBER
3 1999
PP.
303-314
303
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