British Journal of Criminology Advance Access published online on March 18, 2008
British Journal of Criminology, doi:10.1093/bjc/azn003
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The British Journal of Criminology 0:azn003 (2008)
© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Educational Attainment And Juvenile Crime
Area-Level Evidence Using Three Cohorts of Young People
* Dr Ricardo Sabates, Senior Research Officer and NIACE Fellow, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK; R.Sabates{at}ioe.ac.uk.
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Abstract |
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This paper provides an estimate of the impact of educational attainment on juvenile conviction rates using information at the Local Education Authority in England. The empirical analysis uses aggregate conviction rates over time for three cohorts of young people, born between 1981 and 1983, and their corresponding educational attainments, poverty indicators, time away from school and school resources. Results using mixed-effects models show that the increase in educational attainment between cohorts is associated with reductions in conviction rates for most offences (burglary, theft, criminal damage and drug-related offences) but not for violent crime. Reductions in poverty are associated with decreasing conviction rates for violent crime, criminal damage and drug-related offences, whereas increasing unauthorized time away from school is associated with higher convictions rates for theft. The results are important, as they complement current empirical studies by looking at the impact of education on cohort-specific conviction rates over time and at the impact of education on different types of offences.