Increasingly, more women are entering the labour market and more women are also being convicted of criminal activity than in the past.
Information suggests that many of these women also experience custodial sentences.
What do you think that the main barriers are to female ex-offenders entering the labour market?
Do these differe significantly from their male counterparts?
Why is there such a dearth of research into this topic?
According to Apex Scotland (2005), statistics would strongly suggest that approximately 700,000 Scottish people have criminal records – almost one fifth of the total Scottish population, and that presently - “1 in 4 males in Scotland has a criminal record before the age of 21 and that excludes minor motoring offences.” (Apex Scotland;2005) Furthermore, Apex Scotland having reviewed available statistics, have also come to the considered conclusion that those individuals who have exhibited past offending behaviour disproportionately constitute an identifiable, significant and substantial sub-element of the long-term unemployed. This correlation between offending convictions and unemployment generally, and to a greater extent long-term unemployment, has also been substantiated by Australian and other Countries’ research.
Furthermore, it has been suggested by Mayson (2003) that high quality and effective guidance can actually contribute to reductions in crime and its associated economic, social and psychological costs to individuals and the country as there is a “statistical association between unemployment and crime, and the possible causal links between variables such as unemployment, substance abuse and crime rates, suggest that a reduction in unemployment may assist in reducing crime rates.” (Mayson;2003;P7)
Clearly then, there is a mutually supportive dialectic relationship between crime and employment, whatever way you examine it. Consequently, this client group ought to be of interest to the Scottish and English Careers Service’s respective priority areas, as they constitute a major part of the potential client group population, due to often being part of the socially and economically excluded and Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) - being a target policy area.
Differentiating the wider group of people who have convictions into their respective gender groups and evaluating whether gender status as a variable, determines positively or negatively to any extent, whether applications for employment by offenders will be successful or not may be a useful undertaking.
The issue of vastly increasing female employment, coupled with growing rates of females who have criminal convictions attempting to enter the labour market has become an issue which Career Guidance practitioners will inevitably have to address, and will continue to be one, if trends continue as they are
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Female Ex-offenders and Employment
