The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

by Michelle Alexander

Willingness to hire people with criminal records is greatest in construction or manufacturing—industries that require little customer contact—and weakest in retail trade and other service sector businesses.28 Manufacturing jobs, however, have all but disappeared from the urban core during the past thirty years. Not long ago, young, unskilled men could find decent, well-paying jobs at large factories in most major Northern cities. Today, due to globalization and deindustrialization, that is no longer the case. Jobs can be found in the suburbs—mostly service sector jobs—but employment for unskilled men with criminal convictions, while difficult to find anywhere, is especially hard to find close to home. A person whose driver’s license has been suspended due to a criminal conviction or who does not have access to a car often faces nearly insurmountable barriers to finding employment. Driving to the suburbs to pick up and drop off applications, attend interviews, and pursue employment leads may be perfectly feasible if you have a driver’s license and access to a vehicle, but attempting to do so by bus is another matter entirely.