The paper indicates that the United States has incarcerated an extraordinarily high proportion of men of working age overall and among blacks. In 1993, the number of men incarcerated was 1.9 percent of the male work force. Among blacks, the figure was 8.8 percent. Although many researchers and policy officials believe the rising trend in incarceration should reduce crime rates through the incapacitation of criminals and the deterrent effect of potential arrest and imprisonment, evidence indicates no such drop in crime rates. The implication is there is an increased propensity to commit crime among the noninstitutional population. The paper focuses on the possibility that continued high crime rates in the United States, despite massive imprisonment of criminals, may be one of the costs of rising inequality in the country and may be particularly related to declining real earnings of the less educated. A general positive relation between joblessness and crime is noted, one that appears most strongly in comparisons of unemployment rates and crime rates across areas. It is also pointed out that labor market incentives beyond joblessness, wages from legitimate work or measures of inequality, affect crime and potentially contribute to the rising propensity of non-institutionalized males to commit crime. 82 references, 13 footnotes, and 7 figures