Nearly each activity software asks it: have you been convicted of a criminal offense? For the masses of millions of younger males leaving American prisons every year, their resolution to that query may well be certain whether or not they can locate paintings and start rebuilding their lives.

            The manufactured from an leading edge box scan, Marked provides us our first genuine glimpse into the super problems dealing with ex-offenders within the task industry. Devah Pager matched up pairs of younger males, randomly assigned them felony documents, then despatched them on 1000's of actual task searches in the course of the urban of Milwaukee. Her candidates have been appealing, articulate, and capable—yet ex-offenders bought below part the callbacks of the both certified candidates with no legal backgrounds. younger black males, in the meantime, paid a very excessive cost: people with fresh documents fared no greater of their activity searches than white males simply out of felony. Such surprising limitations to valid paintings, Pager contends, are an immense cause that many ex-prisoners quickly locate themselves again within the realm of poverty, underground employment, and crime that led them to legal within the first place.

“Using scholarly learn, box learn in Milwaukee, and pix, [Pager] indicates that ex-offenders, white or black, stand a really terrible probability of having a sound activity. . . . either informative and convincing.”—Library Journal

“Marked is that infrequent booklet: a penetrating textual content that jewelry with ethical situation couched in bright prose—and essentially the most worthwhile sociological reviews in years.”—Michael Eric Dyson