Juvenile crime is a pressing issue in many countries. One proposed solution is to extend the school day, thereby keeping young people in a supervised environment for a longer period of time. However, the literature on the effect of extending the school day on juvenile delinquency is scarce.
To fill this gap, this project, authored by Geske Rolvering, examines how the expansion of all-day schools in West Germany affects juvenile delinquency. It focuses on both short- and long-term effects as well as on different types of crime, including property, violent and drug offenses. To address non-random selection into all-day schools, the author exploits the exogenous nature of a national investment program that significantly increased the availability of all-day schools between 2003 and 2009 in an instrumental variable approach. The empirical analysis is based on a unique registry data set of police-reported crime, information on school infrastructure, and survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
Preliminary results suggest that the funding program significantly reduces property crime – especially theft – while increasing drug offences and aggravated assaults. There is also weak evidence that the effects are sustained in the longer term.
