Criminal activity is seasonal, peaking in the summer and declining through the winter. We provide the first evidence that arrests of children and reported crimes involving children follow a different pattern: peaking during the school year and declining in the summer. We use a regression discontinuity design surrounding school start dates and an excess crime calculation to show that the school environment increases reported crimes involving children by roughly 50% annually. School exacerbates preexisting inequality in criminal interactions, increasing the Black-white and male-female gaps in reported juvenile crime and arrest rates by more than 40%.
Keywords
Crime, regression discontinuity, school calendar
Education level
Topics
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/kht2-zj90
