The occupations of individuals were rated, as described in the chapter on Methods and Terms, and if a person had had two different but important types of occupation in his life, two ratings were given. Consequently, our percentages total more than 100.
The control-group members earned their livelihood chiefly as semiskilled laborers (40 per cent), lower white-collar workers (32 per cent), and skilled laborers (24 per cent). The prison group presents a different picture of employment; about half of them were semiskilled, two fifths unskilled, and one fifth lower white collar. More significantly, a full quarter of the prison group had at least at one time derived their living from illegal activity. The sex offenders, taken as a whole, are like the prison group minus much of the element of professional crime
Most of the sex-offender groups consist chiefly of unskilled and semiskilled laborers; the proportion of white-collar workers exceeds one fifth only among the homosexual-offender groups, and the incest offenders alone have more than one fifth of their members who held skilled jobs. The amount of illicit employment varies from zero up to a figure exceeding that of the prison group. Aside from the homosexuals, much of whose “criminal activity” consisted only of selling their sexual services, in only three groups had over 10 per cent supported themselves through illegality. These were the aggressor groups, the aggressors vs. children with 24 per cent, those vs. minors with nearly 30 per cent (well above the figure for the prison group), and those vs. adults with 16 per cent.
We also recorded the occupational status of the parents of each individual. When the subjects are compared with their parents some interesting trends are revealed. With regard to the control group, the differences are inconsequential: more of the men move up into white-collar jobs, but other shifts involve only a few percentage points (see Table 8). Among the prison group and sex offenders, however, one sees a definite downward trend; members of these groups often move down into jobs of lesser status than those of their parents. In the prison group the per cent of unskilled labor among the sons is twice that of their fathers, and the figure for skilled labor is halved. Of course the greatest change lies in the proportion who supported themselves by crime: this is scarcely 2 per cent in the parental generation and over ten times that among the sons. The sex offenders as a whole show a rather similar downward mobility. There is little change in the white-collar picture, but in the blue-collar area there is a shift from skilled to unskilled labor like that noted in the prison group. Again, as in the prison group, the proportion of illegal employment rises markedly (from 1 to 10 per cent).
Certain sex-offender groups do not fit the above general picture. The incest offenders tend to improve upon their fathers’ records, substantially increasing the proportions of semiskilled and skilled job. Aside from the incest offenders, every offender group reveals a marked reduction in the category of skilled labor, usually accompanied by an increase in unskilled labor—this disinclination to develop a skill through hard work and patience appears, in hindsight, a bad omen
*22\161\2*
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