Education and Youth Crime: a Review of the Empirical Literature

This paper provides a systematic literature review on the relationship between education and criminal behavior of young people, using the Technology of Skill Formation (Cunha & Heckman, 2007) as a theoretical framework. The nature of youth crime is different than the nature of adult crime. We analyze studies that evaluate childhood and adolescence interventions and studies that examine the effects between education and criminal behavior of young people. The former suggests a link between education and youth crime. The latter shows that education reduces the probability of criminal behavior in adolescence and young adulthood, whereas early criminal involvement is likely to have a negative impact on educational attainment. The underlying mechanisms of these effects are generally not identified and can combine different components, such as incapacitation effects, skill acquisition and peer effects.