Lost Boys: Access to Secondary Education and Crime

Kristiina Huttunen, Tuomas Pekkarinen, Roope Uusitalo and Hanna Virtanen ()
Additional contact information
Hanna Virtanen: ETLA - The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy

No 12084, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study the effect of post-compulsory education on crime by exploiting a regression discontinuity design generated by admission cut-offs to upper secondary schools in Finland. We combine data on school applications with data on criminal convictions and follow individuals for 10 years. Our results show that successful applicants are less likely to commit crimes during the first five years after admission. Crime is reduced both during and outside the school year, indicating that the channel through which schooling affects crime cannot be explained by incapacitation alone. We find no effect on crime committed after 6 years from admission.

Keywords: incapacitation; school admission; education; crime; human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I2 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2019-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eur, nep-law and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published in: Journal of Public Economics, 2023, 218, 104804

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Related works:
Working Paper: Lost Boys: Access to Secondary Education and Crime (2019)
Working Paper: Lost Boys: Access to Secondary Education and Crime (2018)
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