Abstract
This chapter provides insight into the past and future labor market careers of male prisoners in the Netherlands using data from the Prison Project. It examines whether unemployment is a longstanding feature of prisoners' lives and provides a baseline measurement of prisoners' employability. The chapter concerns a pre-and post-prison comparison of employment situations. It also examines whether and how the length of a prison spell affects employment prospects after release. Various life course theories pertain to how imprisonment (length) can affect the development of criminal and law-abiding careers. In order to compare the employment history of prisoners with men from the Dutch labor force, a dataset from a Dutch longitudinal labor panel was used (OSA). Several scholars in the field of recidivism research started applying propensity score techniques to control for selection in (longer) imprisonment. The chapter concludes with recommendations for future research and a short reflection on criminal justice and labor market policies.