The importance of family background and neighborhood effects as determinants of crime

Abstract

We quantify the importance of family background and neighborhood effects as determinants of criminal convictions and incarceration by estimating sibling correlations. At the extensive margin, factors common to siblings account for 24 % of the variation in criminal convictions and 39 % of the variation in incarceration. At the intensive margin, these factors typically account for slightly less than half of the variation in prison sentence length and between one third and one half of the variation in criminal convictions, depending on crime type and gender. Further analysis shows that parental criminality and family structure can account for more of the sibling crime correlation than parental income and education or neighborhood characteristics. The lion’s share of the sibling correlation, however, is unaccounted for by these factors. Finally, sibling spacing also matters—more closely spaced siblings are more similar in their criminal behavior.