IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jpamgt/v38y2019i3p600-628.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Do Summer Youth Employment Programs Improve Criminal Justice Outcomes, and for Whom?

Author

Listed:
  • Alicia Sasser Modestino

Abstract

Cities across the U.S. have turned to summer youth employment programs (SYEPs) to improve the behavioral, economic, and academic outcomes of inner‐city youth. This paper evaluates the impact of the Boston Summer Youth Employment Program using both experimental and non‐experimental variation. Similar to previous studies of summer jobs programs in other cities, I make use of an embedded randomized controlled trial and find that the program reduces violent crime by 35 percent, as measured by the number of arraignments from administrative records during the 17 months after participation. In contrast to prior work, I also find a similar reduction in arraignments for property crimes (−29 percent). This study also provides exploratory evidence on the mechanisms driving these reductions in crime using self‐reported responses of participants from a pre‐/post‐program survey. The results provide suggestive evidence that the beneficial impacts on violent and property crime are largely driven by improved conflict resolution skills versus other factors that would increase the opportunity cost of crime. These findings give researchers some insights into the behavioral changes that occur during the program while also providing a look inside the “black box” as to how SYEPs affect youth outcomes in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Alicia Sasser Modestino, 2019. "How Do Summer Youth Employment Programs Improve Criminal Justice Outcomes, and for Whom?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(3), pages 600-628, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:38:y:2019:i:3:p:600-628
    DOI: 10.1002/pam.22138
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22138
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/pam.22138?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lavecchia, Adam & Oreopoulos, Philip & Spencer, Noah, 2024. "The impact of comprehensive student support on crime," CLEF Working Paper Series 65, Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo.
    2. Lavecchia, Adam M. & Oreopoulos, Philip & Spencer, Noah, 2024. "The Impact of Comprehensive Student Support on Crime: Evidence from the Pathways to Education Program," IZA Discussion Papers 16724, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Mark A. Cohen & David P. Farrington, 2021. "Appropriate Measurement And Use Of “Costs Of Crime” In Policy Analysis: Benefit‐Cost Analysis Of Criminal Justice Policies Has Come Of Age," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(1), pages 284-293, January.
    4. Eduardo Ferraz & Rodrigo Soares & Juan Vargas, 2022. "Unbundling the relationship between economic shocks and crime," Chapters, in: Paolo Buonanno & Paolo Vanin & Juan Vargas (ed.), A Modern Guide to the Economics of Crime, chapter 8, pages 184-204, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Daniel Muir & Cristiana Orlando & Becci Newton, 2024. "Impact of summer programmes on the outcomes of disadvantaged or ‘at risk’ young people: A systematic review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(2), June.
    6. Heller, Sara B., 2022. "When scale and replication work: Learning from summer youth employment experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    7. Amy Ellen Schwartz & Jacob Leos‐Urbel & Joel McMurry & Matthew Wiswall, 2021. "Making summer matter: The impact of youth employment on academic performance," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(2), pages 477-504, May.
    8. Barham, Tania & Cadena, Brian C. & Turner, Patrick S, 2023. "Taking a Chance on Workers: Evidence on the Effects and Mechanisms of Subsidized Employment from an RCT," IZA Discussion Papers 16221, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Daniel Muir & Becci Newton & Cristiana Orlando, 2023. "PROTOCOL: Impact of summer programmes on the outcomes of disadvantaged or at risk young people: A systematic review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(3), September.
    10. Jonathan M.V. Davis & Sara B. Heller, 2020. "Rethinking the Benefits of Youth Employment Programs: The Heterogeneous Effects of Summer Jobs," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 664-677, October.
    11. Judd B. Kessler & Sarah Tahamont & Alexander Gelber & Adam Isen, 2022. "The Effects of Youth Employment on Crime: Evidence from New York City Lotteries," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(3), pages 710-730, June.
    12. Atwell, Meghan Salas & Jeon, Jeesoo & Cho, Youngmin & Coulton, Claudia & Lewis, Eric & Sorensen, Alena, 2023. "Using integrated data to examine the effects of summer youth employment program completion on educational and criminal justice system outcomes: Evidence from Cuyahoga County, Ohio," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:38:y:2019:i:3:p:600-628. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/34787/home .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.