Abstract
This article examines the thesis put forth by Sampson and Laub (1993) that "social capital" over an offender's life course positively or negatively impinges upon their success in the community - i.e., ability to avoid criminal re-processing. Using a data set (N= 773) of male Canadian penitentiary inmates released to the community between 1983-1984, a test is made of the impact of both employment and marriage during a three-year supervision follow-up, controlling for race, alcohol involvement, prior juvenile convictions, and prior adult convictions. Because the sample does not represent a classic, longitudinal design, we consider this to be a partial test of the life course thesis. Regardless of whether the dependent variable is general or violent criminal recidivism, full-time employment and marriage remain significant predictors for male convicts -- employment being the more statistically significant of the two. Ironically, at the very time when the Canadian prison industry was disbanding their offender employment programs, this data suggests otherwise. Today, employment programs for offenders are politically unpopular yet they suggest promise when offenders can find meaningful and stable jobs. Structural intervention in market economies might be suggested. Is it therefore reasonable to ask: who is creating conditions favorable to criminality and are our prisons designed to maintain the employment marginality of offenders?

Matthew G. Yeager
Carleton University
Matthew G. Yeager is a clinical criminologist. He has a bachelor's in Criminology from U.C. Berkeley and has earned a mater's degree in Criminal Justice from the State University of New York, Albany. He is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology, in Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. His interests are sociology of law, sentencing, inequality, dangerous offenders, and gender issues.