We estimate the effect of losing Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits at age 18 on criminal justice and employment outcomes over the next two decades. To estimate this effect, we use a regression discontinuity design in the likelihood of being reviewed for SSI eligibility at age 18...

This paper studies the effect of a restorative justice intervention targeted at youth ages 13 to 17 facing felony charges of medium severity (e.g., burglary, assault). Eligible youths were randomly assigned to participate in the Make-it-Right (MIR) restorative justice program or to a control...

We develop a theoretical model to explain both the high level and persistence in gun violence for black males ages 15-24 consistent with the empirical literature. A person may carry a gun for instrumental (i.e., criminal) reasons or for its perceived protective benefit. Discerning underlying...

Roughly one in four juveniles arrested in the U.S. spend time in a detention center prior to their court date. To study the consequences of this practice for youth, we link the universe of individual public school records in Michigan to juvenile and adult criminal justice records. Using a...

We estimate the effect of local access to office-based mental healthcare on juvenile arrest outcomes. We leverage variation in the number of mental healthcare offices within a county over the period 1999 to 2016 in a two-way fixed-effects model. Office-based treatment is the most common modality...

Recent policy discussions have proposed government-guaranteed jobs, including for youth. One key potential benefit of youth employment is a reduction in criminal justice contact. Prior work on summer youth employment programs has documented little-to-no effect of the program on crime during the...

Children's indirect exposure to the justice system through biological parents or co-resident adults is both a marker of their own vulnerability and a measure of the justice system's expansive reach in society. Estimating the size of this population for the United States has historically been...

Exploiting variation in welfare reform across states and over time and using relevant comparison groups, this study estimates the effects of welfare reform on an important source of human capital acquisition among women at risk for relying on welfare: vocational education and training. The...

The current high rates of return to human capital stimulate a supply response via increased investments in education and training. The so increased human capital stock exerts downward pressures on the rates of return that reduce the skill differential in wages. This paper reports estimates of:...

This paper compares and contrasts the structure of pest school training for young nonuniversity graduates in Britain and the United States. We utilize two unique longitudinal surveys in these countries on young people to examine four issues: the extent of pest school training in Britain and the...