Are Idle Hands the Devil

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Are Idle Hands the Devils Workshop?

• Jacob, Brian A. and Lars Lefgren, Are Idle Hands
  the Devils Workshop? Incapacitation,
  Concentration, and Juvenile Crime, American
  Economic Review 93(5), December 2003
  1560-1577.

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Introduction

• Juvenile crime is costly to society.
• 2.8 million people under 18 arrested in 1997
  (1/5 of all arrests).
• Expenditures on criminal justice and protection
  cost about 175 billion each year.
• Incarceration reduces a juveniles earnings by
  10-30.

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Findings of prior research

• Factors related to juvenile crime age, gender,
  family background, parenting quality, economic
  opportunities, and severity of punishment.
• Juvenile violence peaks in the after-school
  hours on school days and in the evenings on
  nonschool days.
• Proposed policy to reduce juvenile crime
  lengthen the school day or school year and/or
  provide activities when school is out.

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Weaknesses of Prior Literature

• Direction of causality between youth programs
  and crime is not established.
• Studies address crime within a day but not
  across days, e.g., lengthening the school day may
  reduce crime after school but may increase
  violence during other periods.
• Do not study property or other nonviolent crimes.

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Question Under Study
Does more time in school or in after-school
programs affect juvenile crime?
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• Two potential, offsetting effects
• Incapacitation (idle hands) effect keeping
  kids busy keeps them off the streets and out of
  trouble.
• (School reduces crime.)
• Concentration effect geographic concentration
  of juveniles increases the number of potentially
  volatile social interactions.
• (School increases violent crime.)

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Data
National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
data from the Bureau of Justice on daily crime
statistics for 29 jurisdictions from 1995-1999 is
merged with school calendar information on school
days and out-of-school days.
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Model
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Estimation Method

• Negative binomial regression model with
  fixed effects.
• Coefficients can be roughly interpreted as the
  percentage effect of a regressor on crime.

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Results
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Results

• Juvenile property crime decreases by 14 on
  days when school is in session.
• Juvenile violent crime increases by 28 on
  school days.
• Changes in criminal activity from changes in the
  school day are not offset by criminal activity
  during other time periods or days.

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Conclusion
Findings are consistent with the incapacitation
effect for property crime, but with the
concentration effect for violent crime.
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Policy Implications. Smaller after-school
programs that provide monitoring, structure, and
activities, but do not substantially increase the
concentration of juveniles thereby stimulating
conflict, may be the best way to reduce juvenile
crime.
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Evaluation of Article

• Was there sufficient evidence to support the
  conclusions in the article about the primary
  question? Yes.
• The authors conduct a careful study and address
  possible concerns with their work throughout the
  paper.
• They perform a comprehensive sensitivity
  analysis.

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