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Tough on young offenders : harmful or helpful?
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Lotti, Giulia (2016) Tough on young offenders : harmful or helpful? Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick, Department of Economics. Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (WERPS) (1126).
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Abstract
How harshly should society punish young lawbreakers in order to prevent or reduce their criminal activity in the future? Through a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we shed light on the question by exploiting two quasi-natural experiments stemming to compare outcomes from relatively harsh or rehabilitative criminal incarceration practices involving young offenders in the 1980’s in England and Wales. According to our local linear regression estimates, young offenders exposed to the harsher youth facilities are 20.7 percent more likely to recidivate in the nine years subsequent to their custody, and they commit on average 2.84 offences more than offenders who experienced prison. Moreover, they are more likely to commit violent offences, thefts, burglaries and robberies. On the contrary, offenders who were sent to the more rehabilitative youth facilities are less likely to reoffend in the future when compared to offenders sent to prison. We conclude that it is effective to keep young offenders separate from their older peers in prison, but only when they are held in institutions
that are not solely focused on punishment.
| Item Type: | Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper) | ||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics | ||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Juvenile delinquents, Recidivism, Crime, Punishment in crime deterrence | ||||
| Series Name: | Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (WERPS) | ||||
| Publisher: | University of Warwick, Department of Economics | ||||
| Place of Publication: | Coventry | ||||
| ISSN: | 2059-4283 | ||||
| Official Date: | June 2016 | ||||
| Dates: |
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| Date of first compliant deposit: | 1 August 2016 | ||||
| Number: | 1126 | ||||
| Number of Pages: | 61 | ||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||
| Funder: | Royal Economic Society (Great Britain) (RES) |
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