Inequality of opportunity in juvenile crime and education

To what extent should young people be normatively held responsible for committing a crime? To contribute to this ongoing debate, our study explores the influence of inequality of opportunity on juvenile crime and education outcomes. Drawing upon Roemer’s theoretical framework and utilizing administrative data from Chile, we conduct an empirical analysis to gauge the degree to which culpability for criminal behavior or failure to graduate can be attributed to structural determinants (referred to as circumstances) versus the choices made by individuals (referred to as agency). Our findings provide compelling evidence of significant inequality of opportunity within this context. Specifically, when explaining crime among males, the contribution of circumstances varies between 46.44% and 39.58%. In contrast, the role of circumstances in high school completion appears less pronounced, with levels spanning from 34.80% to 26.01%. Importantly, our study challenges existing literature, suggesting that alternative conceptualizations of equality of opportunity yield a distinct understanding regarding the relative contributions of agency versus circumstances.