How Locking Up Adolescents Contributes to Crime
In June, Anna Aizer and Joseph Doyle, in conjuction with the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts released a working paper on rates of incarceration for juvenile offenders and how they correlate with future criminal acts: Juvenile Incarceration, Human Capital And Future Crime: Evidence From Randomly-Assigned Judges (.pdf). As Freakonomics blog put it: “a deterrence argument in favor of juvenile incarceration doesn’t hold much water.”
In the abstract of the paper, Aizer and Doyle write:
Over 130,000 juveniles are detained in the U.S. each year with 70,000 in detention on any given day, yet little is known whether such a penalty deters future crime or interrupts social and human capital formation in a way that increases the likelihood of later criminal behavior. This paper uses the incarceration tendency of randomly-assigned judges as an instrumental variable to estimate causal effects of juvenile incarceration on high school completion and adult recidivism. Estimates based on over 35,000 juvenile offenders over a ten-year period from a large urban county in the US suggest that juvenile incarceration results in large decreases in the likelihood of high school completion and large increases in the likelihood of adult incarceration. These results are in stark contrast to the small effects typically found for adult incarceration, but consistent with larger impacts of policies aimed at adolescents.
Aizer and Doyle used data from the Cook County Juvenile Department of Corrections. To begin with, they note that the U.S. has a juvenile corrections rate 5 times higher than the next highest county. Because the paper has an economic perspective, the authors explore the idea that “incarceration during adolescence may interrupt human and social capital accumulation at a critical moment, leading to reduced future wages . . . and greater criminal activity.” Because this interruption in social and economic development comes at a critical stage, the authors posit that incarceration has a greater negative impact on juveniles than adults. The paper estimates these effects through high school completion and recidivism rates.
Aizer and Doyle found that negative effects of juvenile incarceration were particularly pronounced for non-violent offenders. The impact of not completing high school with one’s peers receives particular attention in the analysis. Ultimately, Aizer and Doyle conclude that alternatives to incarceration for juveniles produce better societal outcomes through increasing high school graduation rates and reducing recidivism.
Both the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post ran editorials reacting to the working paper. The Tribune’s Mary Schmich writes that Illinois is among states that are reversing the trend of the 1980’s and 1990’s of increasing juvenile incarceration rates. The Post’s Brad Plumer notes that Cook County has established a Juvenile Detentions Alternative Initiative, using electronic monitoring, work programs and curfew enforcement to keep juvenile defendants out of detention. Both editorials build on the working paper’s policy suggestions to argue how it harms communities to remove youthful offenders from their communities, leaving them to forge their deepest relationships with other troubled youth. Both editorials take the economic arguments against juvenile incarceration to make social welfare commentary against increased incarceration for adolescents.
Marc Schindler, the new executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, recently called attention to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change effort. Both projects promote effective community-based alternatives to juvenile incarceration, as well as substantial re-entry planning and assistance for adolescents when they return to their communities.
At Chicago Appleseed, we approach our courts and criminal justice research and advocacy with the intent of identifying dysfunction and improving it. We believe in the principles of the community court model (.pdf):
- Restoration of the community
- Bridging the gap between communities and courts
- Unifying courts within the same division
- Assisting defendants with problems that lead to recidivism
- Educating defendants, families, and victims about the courts and social services, as well as providing more complete information to judges, attorneys, and probation officers about prior offenses, prior services and related issues.
- Court facilities that embody the community court ethos.
List adapted from Community Courts and Family Law (.pdf), by Deborah J. Chase, Hon. Sue Alexander, and Hon. Barbara Miller.
Aizer and Doyle’s research shows a need for connecting justice systems with social needs and we hope Cook County continues to strive to improve the quality of justice for youthful offenders, while reducing incarceration and serving our communities.