Effects of government initiatives on youth crime

Abstract

This paper evaluates the impacts on male juvenile burglary conviction rates of two UK government interventions, the Reducing Burglary Initiative and Educational Maintenance Allowances, only the former of which had crime reduction as an explicit objective. Using difference-in-differences estimation techniques, the paper shows that in areas where both initiatives were introduced convictions for 16 to 18 year olds for burglary fell between 1.1 and 1.5 per 1,000 relative to areas where neither programme was introduced. This is also a much greater crime reduction than for areas that introduced the EMA or the RBI singly. We conclude, therefore, that educational policies can complement direct interventions for crime prevention. These findings also highlight the importance of joined-up thinking in policy delivery, i.e. the interconnections between departmental programmes in the delivery of desirable outcomes