Does the Military Train Men to Be Violent Criminals? New Evidence from Australia's Conscription Lotteries

Peter Siminski, Simon Ville and Alexander Paull
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Alexander Paull: University of Wollongong

No 7152, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Combat is the most intense form of military service, but several aspects of the training experience, which explicitly prepares people for violent warfare, are hypothesized to link service to violent crime. Using Australia's Vietnam-era conscription lotteries for identification and criminal court data from Australia's three largest states, we seek to estimate the effect of army training on violent crime. Using various specifications, we find no evidence that military training causes violent crime, and our point estimates are always negative. In our preferred specification (using only non-deployed cohorts), we rule out with 95% confidence any positive violent crime effects larger than 3.6% relative to the mean.

Keywords: violent crime; military service; natural experiment; Australia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H56 I12 J45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2013-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Working Paper: Does the Military Train Men to be Violent Criminals? New Evidence from Australia’s Conscription Lotteries (2013)
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