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Juvenile Punishment, High School Graduation and Adult Crime: Evidence from Idiosyncratic Judge Harshness

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  • Ozkan Eren
  • Naci Mocan

Abstract

This paper contributes to the debate on the impact of juvenile punishment on adult criminal recidivism and high school completion. We link the universe of case files of those who were convicted of a crime as a juvenile between 1996 and 2012 in a southern U.S. state to the public school administrative records and to adult criminal records. The detail of the data allows us to utilize information on the exact types of crimes committed, as well as the type and duration of punishment imposed, both as a juvenile and as an adult. We exploit random assignment of cases to judges and use idiosyncratic judge stringency in imprisonment to estimate the causal effect of incarceration on adult crime and on high school completion. Incarceration has a detrimental impact on high school completion for earlier cohorts, but it has no impact on later cohorts, arguably because of the school reform implemented in the state in the late 1990s. We find that incarceration as a juvenile has no impact on future violent crime, but it lowers the propensity to commit property crime. Juvenile incarceration increases the propensity of being convicted for a drug offense in adulthood, but this effect is largely driven by time spent in prison as a juvenile. Specifically, juvenile incarceration has no statistically significant impact on adult drug offenses if time spent in prison is less than the median, but longer incarceration increases adult drug conviction, arguably because longer prison stays intensify emotional stress, leading to drug use.

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  • Ozkan Eren & Naci Mocan, 2017. "Juvenile Punishment, High School Graduation and Adult Crime: Evidence from Idiosyncratic Judge Harshness," NBER Working Papers 23573, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23573
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Anthony Bald & Eric Chyn & Justine Hastings & Margarita Machelett, 2022. "The Causal Impact of Removing Children from Abusive and Neglectful Homes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(7), pages 1919-1962.
    2. Ozkan Eren & Naci H. Mocan, 2020. "Judge Peer Effects in the Courthouse," NBER Working Papers 27713, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Max Gross & E. Jason Baron, 2022. "Temporary Stays and Persistent Gains: The Causal Effects of Foster Care," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 170-199, April.
    4. Brigham Frandsen & Lars Lefgren & Emily Leslie, 2023. "Judging Judge Fixed Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(1), pages 253-277, January.
    5. Jason Baron, E. & Jacob, Brian & Ryan, Joseph, 2023. "Pretrial juvenile detention," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    6. Paik, Leslie & Giuffre, Andrea & Harris, Alexes & Shannon, Sarah, 2023. "The long reach of juvenile and criminal legal debt: How monetary sanctions shape legal cynicism and adultification," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    7. Leonardo Rosa & Raphael Bruce & Natália Sarellas, 2022. "Effects of school day time on homicides: The case of the full-day high school program in Pernambuco, Brazil," Working Papers 16, Instituto de Estudos para Políticas de Saúde.
    8. Agan, Amanda & Doleac, Jennifer & Harvey, Anna, 2021. "Misdemeanor Prosecution," IZA Discussion Papers 14234, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Johannes W. Ligtenberg & Tiemen Woutersen, 2024. "Multidimensional clustering in judge designs," Papers 2406.09473, arXiv.org.
    10. Roee Sarel, 2022. "Crime and punishment in times of pandemics," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 155-186, October.
    11. William Arbour & Steeve Marchand, 2022. "Parole, Recidivism, and the Role of Supervised Transition," Working Papers tecipa-725, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    12. Bhuller, Manudeep & Sigstad, Henrik, 2022. "Errors and monotonicity in judicial decision-making," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • K40 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - General

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