Youth Crime and Delinquency In And Out Of School

Abstract

Ten years of idiosyncratic variation in school closure dates for all secondary schools in England are combined with administrative records of educational and criminal trajectories linked at the individual level to study the impact of the school schedule on the dynamics of youth crime. When school is not in session, students commit more property offences, more serious violent offences and fewer minor violent offences. Increased thefts, robberies and violent assaults drive these effects. This is novel evidence of strong multiple crime effects that arise from the protective factor of schooling and which affect not only the incidence of violence, but also its severity and its targets.