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Does School Choice Leave Behind Future Criminals?

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Listed:
  • Andrew Bibler

    (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)

  • Stephen B. Billings

    (University of Colorado)

  • Stephen L. Ross

    (University of Connecticut)

Abstract

School choice lotteries are an important tool for allocating access to high-quality and oversubscribed public schools. While prior evidence suggests that winning a school lottery decreases adult criminality, there is little evidence for how school choice lotteries impact non-lottery students who are left behind at their neighborhood school. We leverage variation in actual lottery winners conditional on expected lottery winners to link the displacement of middle school peers to adult criminal outcomes. We find that non-applicant boys are more likely to be arrested as adults when applicants from their neighborhood win the school choice lottery. These effects are concentrated among boys who are at low risk of being arrested based on observables. Finally, we confirm evidence in the literature that students who win the lottery decrease adult criminality but show that after accounting for the negative impact on the students who forego the lottery, lotteries increase overall arrests and days incarcerated for young men.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Bibler & Stephen B. Billings & Stephen L. Ross, 2023. "Does School Choice Leave Behind Future Criminals?," Working papers 2023-02, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:uct:uconnp:2023-02
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    School Choice Lotteries; Students Left Behind; Arrest; Crime; Middle School; Neighborhood Effects; Peers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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