Crime and work

Crime and legal work are not mutually exclusive choices but represent a con tinuum of legal and illegal income-generating activities. The links between crime and legal work involve trade-offs among crime returns, punishment co sts, legal work opportunity costs, and tastes and preferences regarding bot h types of work. Rising crime rates in the 1980s in the face of rising inca rceration rates suggest that the threat of punishment is not the dominant c ost of crime. Crime rates are inversely related to expected legal wages, pa rticularly among young males with limited job skills or prospects. Recent e thnographic research shows that involvement in illegal work often is motiva ted by low wages and harsh conditions in legal work. Many criminal offender s "double up" in both leg al work and crime, either concurrently or sequent ially. This overlap suggests a fluid and dynamic interaction between legal and illegal work. Market wages and job opportunities interact with social a nd legal pressures to influence decisions to abandon crime for legal work. Explanations of the patterns of legal and illegal work should be informed b y econometric, social structural, and labeling theories. The continuity of legal and illegal work, suggests the importance of illegal wages in researc h and theory on criminal decision making.