Brya n l. sy k es , megH a n Ba ll a r d , a ndr e a giuffr e , r eBecca goodsell, da niel a k a iser, v icen te celestino m ata , a nd justin sol aResearch on punishment and inequality finds that people with criminal records routinely avoid systems of surveillance. Yet scholarship on monetary sanctions shows that many people experiencing poverty with criminal legal system debt are also involved with the state in other domains of social life. How can these literatures be resolved? In this article, we posit that past research can be reconciled through a focus on financial double-dealing-disparate and contradictory economic entanglements that redistribute welfare resources from individuals to the criminal legal system and its institutional affiliates. Drawing on nationally representative survey data, as well as unique data collected on people with monetary sanctions in seven states, we find that individuals and families receiving cash and noncash public assistance are significantly more likely to owe monetary sanctions and are less likely to pay them. We discuss the implications of multiple-system involvement for ongoing surveillance.

Obtaining employment is a major barrier to social reintegration for people on probation or parole. Research on the reentry process identifies several mechanisms that accentuate difficulties in locating work, including human capital development, structural changes in the labor market, and onerous probation and parole conditions. In this article, we review theories that explain low labor market participation rates among people reentering society, and we draw on multiple sources of data to identify the types of jobs that are available to people with low human capital. We find that nearly a quarter of people in America’s state and federal prisons had permanently removed themselves from the formal labor market before their most recent arrest; however, exclusionary hiring practices in the formal labor market often push those carrying the stigma of a criminal record into underground or informal labor markets, where wage rates are markedly higher than the federal minimum wage. Our findings demonstrate that severe and chronic employment struggles often predate and follow incarceration. We provide a detailed discussion of policy reform proposals that could help to remedy this harmful dynamic.

Compared to immigrant criminality, relatively less attention is paid to immigrant victimization, even as extensive scholarship on criminal victimization exists more generally. This is curious in light of research showing that certain immigrant groups are at increased risk of victimization with respect to certain crimes. In this essay, we set out to answer the following questions: How do leading theories of victimization explain the risk of immigrant victimization? Are there aspects of immigrant victimization that would benefit from further theorization and empirical inquiry? How do challenges associated with data collection of immigrant populations impact the advancement of theorizing and research on immigrant victimization? What insights about immigrant victimization may be gained by better integrating theory, data, and method in this research area? To answer these questions, we first provide an overview of classic frameworks used to explain criminal victimization in general, mapping their development to broader discussions in victimology. We then review how victimization theories are used to explain immigrant victimization, discuss the possibility of using culturally integrated theories of offending in immigrant victimization research, and examine data impediments associated with studying immigrant crime victims. With an aim toward integrating theory, data, and method in this research area, we next propose that scholars center language in research on immigrant victimization, offering examples of where such an approach could yield important theoretical and empirical advancements. We conclude by identifying policies and practices that are consistent with this approach.

Bryan L. Sykes and Meghan Ballard on racial justice acts.

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