Effect of Education on Crime

Education is a critical factor in crime prevention in Argentina - the country I will examine more in depth in this paper - and the rest of the world. In this paper, I will analyze the effects that quality and sustained education has on crime statistics, both on a national and global scale.

Theory

Property and street crimes are most often committed by people who lack the resources to make money for themselves. Therefore, this theory suggests that individuals with high school credentials are more likely to get a good job and commit less crime. Moreover, school increases people’s patience, which increases the probability that they will turn to honest work rather than theft. It also teaches to expect punishment for misbehavior and creates a scholarly community, so well-taught peers influence those susceptible to commit crime into abiding by the law. However, it must also be considered that increased schooling may grant somebody the tools necessary to carry out sophisticated, white-collar crime.

Still, there are external factors that may disprove this theory. Perhaps personalities who are likely to drop out of school are also expected to become criminals because that is who they are. Maybe certain areas have to choose between funding police or school, which can give a false sense of correlation, or the relationship between crime and school is the other way around: students drop out because they want to do crime or have been incarcerated. Researchers take these factors into account and study them thoroughly so that when something affects education, it can be seen how it impacts crime.

Effect of lack of education

Several statistics prove that a lack of education increases the probability of crime. In 1997, 75 percent of state and 59 percent of federal prison inmates in the US did not have a high school diploma. In 2001, more than 75 percent of convicted persons in Italy had not completed high school, while incarceration rates among men ages 21-25 in the United Kingdom were more than eight times higher for those without an education qualification (dropouts) relative to those with a qualification. Finally, among Swedes born between 1943 and 1955, men with at least one criminal conviction had completed 0.7 years less schooling, on average, than men without one.

Effect of school completion

On the other hand, multiple studies worldwide have shown the positive consequences of school completion on crime. For instance, Hjalmarsson et al. (2011) studied how the Swedish reform of changing the necessary years of schooling from 7 to 9 during the 1950s and 1960s altered crime rates. They showed that for men, one additional year of school reduces the likelihood of conviction by 7.5 percent, the chance of incarceration by 16 percent, the number of crimes by 0.4, and the amount of days sentenced to prison by six percent. Additionally, another year of schooling decreases the likelihood of a property crime conviction by 10 percent, a violent crime conviction by 13 percent, and a sentence of other types of crime by 5 percent. For women, one additional year of schooling significantly lowers the odds of conviction by 11 percent, the total of crimes by 0.09, the probability of sentencing for a property offense by 28 percent, and a violent offense by 50 percent. Furthermore, a study by Buonanno and Leonida (2006) estimates the effects of educational attainment on crime rates using a panel of 20 Italian regions from 1980 to 1995. Their findings suggest that a ten percentage point increase in high school graduation rates would reduce property crime rates by four percent and total crime rates by about three percent.

Effect of quality of education

Similarly, the quality of education received can determine if a person delves into crime. Cullen, Jacob, and Levitt (2006) found that ‘winning’ a randomized lottery for admission to Chicago high schools significantly raises peer graduation rates by six percent and the share of peers who test above national norms by about 14 percent. Those who won lotteries to high-achievement public schools reported nearly 60 percent fewer arrests on a ninth-grade student survey. These winners also accounted for getting into less trouble at school, and school administrative data suggests that they had lower incarceration rates during school ages. Deming (forthcoming) examines the impacts of open enrollment lotteries (for middle and high schools) in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina school district on adult criminal outcomes seven years after random assignment. Among high school lottery winners in the high-risk category, Deming estimates a roughly 45 percent reduction in adult felony arrests.

Effect of school attendance

Finally, attending school can decrease crime rates because of the incapacitation factor - time spent in school is time that cannot be spent committing crime. Plus, by completing school credits, students can graduate, increasing their chances of getting a job. It would make them avoid crime since they already have the income needed, and getting arrested would jeopardize it. Lastly, spending time among educated classmates makes individuals less likely to commit crime themselves. 

Nevertheless, it can also have the opposite effect since it could make them more prone to group crime, joining/forming gangs, or violence between students.

Some investigations that demonstrate the results of attending school include Anderson (2009), who estimates that increasing the compulsory schooling age from 16 to 17 or 18 reduces arrests at the affected ages by nearly 10 percent, with similar impacts on violent and property crime. Jacob and Lefgren (2003) and Luallen (2006) estimates suggest that in urban regions, an additional day of school reduces juvenile property crime by 15-30 percent; however, it increases violent crime by roughly 30 percent (social ramifications, altercations between students).

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Education and crime in Argentina

In Argentina, crime is an overriding crisis. According to the public opinion poll by Latinobarómetro (2010), for Argentina, delinquency and public security are the predominant predicament in the country (37 percent of voters). The Laboratory of Investigations about Crime, Institutions, and Policies (LICIP) of the Torcuato Di Tella University calculates that in May of 2012 the percentage of victimization is 37.7 percent, which indicates that this amount of houses in the principal urban centers of the country have suffered at least one crime in the last 12 months. Besides, crime rates in Latin America are the highest in the world according to Soares and Naritomi, 2010; Bourguignon, 1999; and Fajnzylber, Lederman, and Loayza, 2002.

The causes for this phenomenon include high inequality in the distribution of income, low arrest rates, and reduced police forces (Soares and Naritomi, 2010). Rational individuals analyze the costs and benefits of committing a crime or not. The decision they make depends on the possibilities of making an income via formal work, the punishment of an eventual conviction conditioned by the probability of arrest, and the possibility of capture by the police (for instance, the amount of officers per area). The poverty levels present in society and the inequality in the distribution of income make up key factors in the study of crime since higher social tensions are created with the economic downfall of a country, as well as unemployment and the number of potential criminals.

This can be seen in that most crimes are completed by adolescents since they are less involved in the job market because it offers few opportunities for them. As said by Acevedo (2008), universally, most public transit crimes are committed by men between 15 and 24 years old. In Argentina, according to data from the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights of the Nation (National Direction of Criminal Policy), in the year 2008, almost 55 percent of those convicted for property crimes (theft, grand theft auto, bank robberies) are younger than 21.

What is more, the costs of crime only worsen the economic state of the country, creating a vicious cycle. From the victims’ perspective, they may be associated with the material loss of any object or physical damage during the episode, which comes with health costs or even death. There are intangible costs too, which come from the suffering and pain of victims of crimes or potential victims, since to avoid being victimized they change behaviors that limit their development as members of a community, given the environment they live in (Acevedo, 2008). Still, to avoid being victims they may adopt security measures such as avoiding circulating dangerous zones, not acquiring goods that may expose them to robberies, hiring private security, etc. Secondly, for delinquents, there are costs associated with the eventual loss of freedom, being excluded from the labor market during their arrest, deteriorating human capital, the stigma associated with being a convict, being estranged from their family, etc. (crime career costs). Ultimately, from the government’s perspective, the costs include what must be spent on police, the maintenance of the judicial system and prison units, como as well as other costs needed to support victims (costs of the public health system, for example). The latter, if not for the level of crime could be used for other, more useful purposes for the development of a country, such as education. The consequences related to high delinquency levels can be seen in the loss of investments, the lack of accumulation of human capital, a decrease in productivity, etc. with the consequent future negative impact on the economic growth of a country (Soares, 2010).

In this paper, the theory that education may be a solution to this issue is presented, with a particular focus on Argentina, as it is one of the countries that are most severely affected by social insecurity, poverty, and lack of education. Extending access to education to the population possible will provide individuals with better opportunities in the labor market, which is why a reduction in crime incidents is expected (by increasing its opportunity cost). Again, as previously seen, the incapacitation effect, the influence of peers, and lessons taught by school such as patience and expected punishment for misbehavior may help to reduce crime as well. Still, as previously mentioned, the fact that education may turn people into sophisticated crime such as economic fraud is not discarded. (Lochner, 2004).

Federal Law of Education Case Study

The Federal Law of Education, sanctioned in 1993, increased the mandatory years of education from 7 to 10. For the 15 principal Argentine cities in the year the law was approved (1993) the percentage of high school-aged people that effectively assisted is 64.48%, while two years after the law began to be implemented (1998) this percentage reached 80.34%. This reform created significant drops in total reported crimes and crimes against private property (a decrease in the number of property crime every 100 thousand inhabitants from 738 to 866, for the time period exposed to the reform): the estimated coefficients are in a range between 953 and 1120 amount of fewer crimes (every 100 thousand inhabitants) for the period affected by the reform. Significant evidence for crimes against personhood and homicides was not found, results consistent with what is expected in the frame of the Economic Theory of Crime, since it is generally argued that these crimes are not motivated by economic reasons and therefore not likely to be modified by individuals’ education. In agreement with this, the decrease in crime was caused by the human capital effect (job opportunities) and the incapacitation effect.

Conclusions

As these statistics match the previously shown evidence from developed nations, it can be concluded that investing in education is universally successful in decreasing crime. There are also financial benefits as a byproduct of crime reduction: Lochner and Moretti (2004) calculate that the social savings of a one percentage point increase in male US high school graduation rates (from reduced crime alone) in 1990 would have amounted to more than USD 2 billion. In the UK, Machin et al. (2011) estimate a social savings of over 10,000 pounds per additional student qualification from reductions in property crime alone. Deming (forthcoming) estimates that reductions in crimes leading to an arrest realized from offering better quality school options to a high-risk youth would produce USD 16,000 in social savings for victims over the next seven years. Because better schools are also likely to have reduced crimes that never lead to an arrest, total victimization savings are likely to be substantially higher. Total social savings should be still larger after factoring in savings on prisons and other crime prevention costs.

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