Challenging and Deflecting: Stigma Resistance Narratives of the Criminal Label through Employment

Stigmatized identities often beget discrimination, impact well being, and exacerbate disadvantage. Individuals can deploy resistance strategies to combat stigma. Using in depth interviews and exploratory regression models, we illuminate narrative resistance strategies justice involved individuals invoke as they contend with criminal record stigma using the case of employment. We find that (1) racial groups framed their relationship to work differently, with black participants describing how they behaviorally overcompensate in the “worker” role to challenge the criminal label, while white participants cognitively presumed an implicit “worker” role that diminished the label’s salience. (2) Through racially coded language, some white participants used “defensive othering” to deflect their criminal identity, distancing themselves from it. (3) Both black and white participants deflected the criminal label by separating their own charges from “serious” crimes. We highlight qualitatively and quantitatively that the particular stigma resistance narratives invoked differ by participant race, which is potentially consequential for inequality reproduction and criminal record stigma.