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Guns, Drugs and Juvenile Crime: Evidence from a Panel of Siblings and Twins

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Author Info
H. Naci Mocan
Erdal Tekin

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Abstract

Using a nationally-representative panel data set of U.S. high school students (AddHealth data) that contains a relatively large sample of siblings and twins, the paper investigates the impacts of gun availability at home and individual drug use on robbery, burglary, theft and damaging property for juveniles. Using a variety of fixed-effects models that exploit variations over time, the results show that gun availability at home increases the propensity to committing robbery, burglary and theft by about two percentage points for juveniles but has no impact on damaging property. It is unlikely that gun availability is merely a measure of the unobserved home environment because gun availability does not influence other risky or bad behaviors of juveniles. The results show that having access to guns increases the probability of being cut or stabbed by someone and of someone pulling a knife or gun on the juvenile. Estimates obtained from models that exploit variations over time and between siblings and twins indicate that the median impact of cocaine use on the propensity to commit various types of crimes is 23 percentage points. The impact of using inhalants or other drugs is an increase in the propensity to commit crime by 14 and 18 percentage points, respectively.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 9824.

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Date of creation: Jul 2003
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9824

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H0 - Public Economics - - General
K4 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior

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  4. H. Naci Mocan & Daniel I. Rees, 2005. "Economic Conditions, Deterrence and Juvenile Crime: Evidence from Micro Data," American Law and Economics Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 319-349. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Michael Grossman & Robert Kaestner & Sara Markowitz, 2002. "Get High and Get Stupid: The Effect of Alcohol and Marijuana Use on Teen Sexual Behavior," NBER Working Papers 9216, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Naci Mocan & Erdal Tekin, 2006. "Ugly Criminals," NBER Working Papers 12019, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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