Prison Record Still Weighs on Consumers Choosing Personal Trainers, National Experiment Finds

A criminal record follows people out of prison and into the job market, but a new study asks an unusual question: does it also follow them into the gym? Researchers Luzi Shi of the University of Rhode Island and Audrey Hickert of the University of Cincinnati set out to determine whether American consumers would hire a personal trainer with a prison history, and under what conditions that stigma might soften. Their findings, published open access in the American Journal of Criminal Justice, suggest that the mark of a criminal record extends well beyond hiring managers and into the fast-growing fitness economy, although the experiment also revealed surprising openings for formerly incarcerated entrepreneurs.

The study is grounded in a rich body of research on physical activity behind bars. Sports and exercise are among the few activities incarcerated people can actively choose, and decades of evidence link them to improved physical and mental health, better quality of life, and more positive behavior during confinement. As far back as 1982, the American Medical Association issued a manual on exercising for the incarcerated, and correctional institutions worldwide have experimented with weightlifting, yoga, cardio programs, and team sports alongside nutrition and substance abuse interventions. Participation in prison sports has been tied to structured daily routines, greater confidence and self-esteem, improved emotional regulation, reduced impulsivity and aggression, and even lower reoffending rates after release. These findings rebut common misbeliefs that competitive sports breed aggression or that physical activity disrupts prison management.

What remains unclear is how these benefits translate into post-release careers. Many people continue their training routines after release, viewing sport as a way to challenge criminal record stigma and reconnect with the community. Some even launch coaching businesses. The New York-based gym CONBODY, for example, offers private training sessions and fitness products while branding itself as founded by an inmate and run by former inmates, promoting its model as prison-style. Entrepreneurship appeals broadly to incarcerated people: courses on starting a business rank among the most popular offerings on tablet-based educational platforms available in prisons. Yet whether the public would actually pay for services from entrepreneurs with prison records was an open empirical question.

To answer it, the researchers embedded a conjoint experiment in a national YouGov survey of 1,100 U.S. adults collected in summer 2025, weighted to mirror the demographic composition of the American population. Conjoint experiments are a powerful tool for isolating causal effects: respondents repeatedly choose between two hypothetical options whose characteristics are randomly varied, allowing researchers to calculate how much each attribute changes the probability of selection. In this case, each respondent evaluated five paired comparisons of hypothetical trainers for a 20-year-old family member, generating 10,990 profile choices. The trainers varied on six dimensions: race, presented as a 30-year-old White or Black man; price, $30 or $80 per hour; certification by the National Academy of Sports Medicine or no credential; client references or none; online or in-person instruction; and, crucially, where they began their fitness journey, in prison, in the military, as a college student athlete, or as a gym member after work.

The results were striking. Compared with trainers who began working out as an after-work gym member, trainers who began in prison were 19.9 percentage points less likely to be recommended, confirming the researchers’ first pre-registered hypothesis. Other attributes behaved as expected: NASM certification raised the probability of recommendation by 22.1 percentage points, client references by 12.3 points, while charging $80 instead of $30 per hour cut it by 16.3 points and offering online rather than in-person classes cut it by 12.2 points. In a twist, Black trainers were 3.7 percentage points more likely to be recommended than White trainers, a pattern the authors suggest may reflect positive stereotyping of racial minorities as athletic, though they caution that the relationship between race, criminal records, and stigma remains complex and contested in the broader literature.

When the researchers modeled how these factors operated specifically for trainers with prison records, the picture grew more nuanced. Overall, trainers with prison records faced a 28.5 percentage point penalty relative to those without. Credentials and references retained their general positive effects, but neither significantly improved the standing of trainers with records beyond that baseline. More intriguingly, the aversion to online classes was significantly weaker for trainers with prison records, suggesting that some respondents preferred to work with them remotely rather than face to face, presumably out of safety concerns. The preference for cheaper instruction was also attenuated: among trainers with prison records, raising the price from $30 to $80 per hour reduced the probability of recommendation by an estimated 11.8 points rather than 17.8, hinting that premium pricing may make such services feel distinguished rather than suspect.

Open-ended responses collected after the experiment illuminated the quantitative patterns. The overwhelming stated deciding factors were price, qualifications signaled by certification and experience, and in-person instruction, with many respondents explicitly saying that prison history or race did not matter compared with credentials and reviews. But when the training background was mentioned directly, prison came up more often than military, college, or gym settings, usually in the language of danger and risk. Comments included that a convict could be dangerous after all, that prison was a disqualifier, and that respondents might select such a trainer for themselves but would not expose family members. Some said they might change their minds after learning the offense, and several noted that online instruction seemed to carry less risk. Others questioned whether fitness gained in prison reflected genuine discipline or simply a forced way to pass time.

Not every respondent rejected formerly incarcerated trainers. Some expressed awareness of injustices in the criminal legal system, including collateral consequences and racial overrepresentation, and said they were open to supporting ex-prisoners who had turned their lives around. One respondent even viewed a White man’s prison record as more concerning than average given structural advantages, illustrating how social justice reasoning cut in different directions. The authors argue these responses point to concrete strategies: marketing prison-forged fitness expertise as a distinguishing feature, packaging services with the glossy premium presentation used by high-end gyms, and framing businesses around redemption and social justice aims that consumers increasingly want brands to reflect.

The policy implications center on prison programming. Because remote instruction partially offsets stigma, the authors recommend that prisons expand digital literacy training, helping incarcerated people navigate the social media and smartphone landscape they were isolated from, especially since returning citizens often face steep technology barriers. Delivering online services also demands communication and interpersonal skills many people behind bars lack, and running a business demands more still, making entrepreneurship and small business management courses vital. Despite the attenuated benefits observed in the experiment, the general public still rewarded credentials and references, so the authors conclude that offering recognized fitness certifications, such as through widely accepted bodies like the National Academy of Sports Medicine, remains a sound investment, consistent with prior research showing vocational credentials improve callback rates and reduce recidivism.

The study has limitations the authors acknowledge. Space constraints prevented them from testing factors such as education level or offense type, some respondents said the profiles did not provide enough information for a real-life decision, and the design did not examine which individual traits predict openness to second chances. Asking respondents to choose for a family member rather than themselves may also have altered the stakes. Still, the central finding is clear: prison stigma pervades the economy, from low-wage labor to the gig economy to entrepreneurship, and consumers penalize trainers with records. Yet the attenuated penalties for online instruction and higher prices suggest that formerly incarcerated fitness entrepreneurs are not shut out entirely. With the right credentials, digital skills, and marketing savvy, the discipline built behind bars could become a marketable asset rather than a mark of exclusion.

Subject of Research: Consumer preferences for personal trainers with criminal records and market opportunities for formerly incarcerated entrepreneurs

Article Title: Moving “The Mark of a Criminal Record”: Consumer Preferences and Market Opportunities for Personal Trainers with Criminal Records

Article References: Shi, L., & Hickert, A. (2026). Moving “The Mark of a Criminal Record”: Consumer Preferences and Market Opportunities for Personal Trainers with Criminal Records. American Journal of Criminal Justice. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-026-09956-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s12103-026-09956-6

Keywords: criminal records, prison stigma, personal training, conjoint experiment, reentry, entrepreneurship, vocational credentials, fitness industry, consumer preferences, race and hiring, prison sport, gig economy