Office-Based Mental Healthcare and Juvenile Arrests

Monica Deza, Thanh Lu and Johanna Maclean

No 29465, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We estimate the effect of local access to office-based mental healthcare on juvenile arrest outcomes. We leverage variation in the number of mental healthcare offices within a county over the period 1999 to 2016 in a two-way fixed-effects model. Office-based treatment is the most common modality of mental healthcare received by juveniles. We find that ten additional office-based mental healthcare providers in a county leads a decrease of 2.3% to 2.6% in the per capita costs to society of juvenile arrest. Findings are similar for arrest rates although often less precise, which suggests that accounting for social costs is empirically important. Crime imposes substantial costs on society and individuals, and interventions during early life can have more pronounced effects than those received at later stages, therefore our results imply increased juvenile access to mental healthcare may have an unintended benefit for the current and future generations.

JEL-codes: I1 I12 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ure
Note: CH EH
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as Monica Deza & Thanh Lu & Johanna Catherine Maclean, 2022. "Office‐based mental healthcare and juvenile arrests," Health Economics, vol 31(S2), pages 69-91.

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