Are idle hands the devil's workshop?: Incapacitation, concentration, and juvenile crime

This paper examines the short-term effect of school on juvenile crime. To do so, we bring together daily measures of criminal activity and detailed school calendar information from 29 jurisdictions across the country, and utilize the plausibly exogenous variation generated by teacher in-service days...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American economic review 2003-12, Vol.93 (5), p.1560-1577
Main Authors: Jacob, Brian A, Lefgren, Lars
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
After school programs
Bildungsverhalten
Calendars
Crime in schools
Crime reporting
Crime victims
Criminal justice
Criminal offenses
Criminals
Criminology
Economic analysis
Economic models
Economic theory
Economics
Holidays
Jugendkriminalität
Juvenile delinquency
Juvenile justice
Juvenile offenders
Minors
Property crime
Property crimes
School attendance
School closures
School districts
Schools
Schule
Students
Studies
Theft
Urban crime
USA
Violent crime
Violent crimes
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper examines the short-term effect of school on juvenile crime. To do so, we bring together daily measures of criminal activity and detailed school calendar information from 29 jurisdictions across the country, and utilize the plausibly exogenous variation generated by teacher in-service days. We find that the level of property crime committed by juveniles decreases by 14 percent on days when school is in session, but the level of violent crime increases by 28 percent on such days. Our findings suggest that both incapacitation and concentration influence juvenile crime.
ISSN:0002-8282
1944-7981
DOI:10.1257/000282803322655446