Youth crime and delinquency in and out of school

Janine Boshoff, Stephen Machin and Matteo Sandi

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Ten years of idiosyncratic variation in school closure dates for all secondary schools in England are combined with administrative records of educational and criminal trajectories linked at the individual level to study the impact of the school schedule on the dynamics of youth crime. When school is not in session, students commit more property offences, more serious violent offences and fewer minor violent offences. Increased thefts, robberies and violent assaults drive these effects. This is novel evidence of strong multiple crime effects that arise from the protective factor of schooling and which affect not only the incidence of violence, but also its severity and its targets.

Keywords: crime; school attendance; exclusion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H44 K14 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-06-24
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Published in The Economic Journal, 24, June, 2026. ISSN: 0013-0133

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https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/138975/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Youth crime and delinquency in and out of school (2025)
Working Paper: Youth Crime and Delinquency In and Out of School (2025)
Working Paper: Youth Crime and Delinquency In And Out Of School (2025)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:138975

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