Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-1-2021
Abstract
This paper contributes to the debate on the impact of juvenile crime punishment on high school completion and adult recidivism using administrative data from a southern U.S. state. We exploit random assignment of cases to judges and use idiosyncratic judge stringency in imprisonment to estimate the causal effect of incarceration. We find that juvenile incarceration increases the propensity of being convicted for a drug offense in adulthood while it lowers the propensity to be convicted of a property crime. Juvenile incarceration has also a detrimental effect on high school completion for earlier cohorts, but it has no impact on later cohorts.
Publication Source (Journal or Book title)
Review of Economics and Statistics
First Page
34
Last Page
47
Recommended Citation
Eren, O., & Mocan, N. (2021). Juvenile punishment, high school graduation, and adult crime: Evidence from idiosyncratic judge harshness. Review of Economics and Statistics, 103 (1), 34-47. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00872