9
Neighborhood Crime and the Criminal Justice System
Crime and the criminal justice system both play important but complicated roles in hampering the ability of children raised in poverty to escape poverty as adults. On the one hand, low-income youth are especially likely to report being victims of crime in their neighborhoods and schools, and research has shown that victimization in childhood can harm children’s health, well-being, and achievement, with lasting consequences.
On the other hand, changes in policing tactics and increases in incarceration since the late 1970s (with small declines in recent years), despite declining crime rates for much of this period, have also disproportionately involved low-income children and families, with negative consequences for their development and long-term economic success (National Research Council et al., 2014; New York Civil Liberties Union, 2013).
In evaluating whether crime and the criminal justice system are key drivers of intergenerational poverty, this chapter begins by reviewing evidence on how these factors affect the well-being, development, and intergenerational mobility of children, devoting particular attention to disparities by race and ethnicity. Given the strong potential for confounding—that is, the possibility that the relationship with intergenerational poverty can be explained by other factors that are correlated with crime, victimization, and criminal justice involvement—the committee was careful to rely on evidence that points to a causal relationship.
The first part of this chapter is organized into two sections. In the first, we discuss victimization and exposure to violence as a driver of the intergenerational persistence of poverty. In the second, we discuss how youth crime and the criminal justice system itself contribute to worse economic
outcomes for poor youth. The last section of the chapter suggests policies and programs that might limit harmful youth interactions with the criminal justice system and reduce child victimization and violence more generally. The committee confines its discussion of ways to reduce the disruptive nature of adult and caregiver interaction with the criminal justice system to Appendix C: Chapter 9, owing to the more speculative nature of the interventions considered by the committee.
VICTIMIZATION AND EXPOSURE TO VIOLENCE AS A DRIVER OF INTERGENERATIONAL POVERTY
Low-income and younger people are much more likely than higher-income and older people to report being victims of crime in their neighborhoods and schools (Figure 9-1; Nowicki, 2020; Kearney et al., 2014). Since the mid-1990s, sharp declines in crime, especially violent crime (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2019), have reduced victimization among low-income children, improving their prospects for healthy development and future economic success. But violent crime has been rising again since 2014, though it remains far below the levels of earlier decades.1
Gun violence is now the leading cause of death among children in the United States (see Chapter 5 for more detail), surpassing motor vehicle accidents.2 Rates of gun violence are highest in low-income communities and in Black, Latino, and Native American communities (Barrett et al., 2021).3 The premature deaths of low-income children obviously impede upward mobility. More generally, crime victimization is strongly correlated with future depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (Kilpatrick & Acierno, 2003; Simons et al., 2002), all of which can adversely affect healthy child and adolescent development.
Exposure to Neighborhood Violence
Beyond direct victimization, children’s exposure to violence and violent crime in their neighborhoods is traumatic and can have a negative effect on their development, reducing future educational attainment and earnings (Nader et al., 1990; Sharkey, 2010). Sharkey and Torrats-Espinosa (2017) show that in the case of adolescents growing up in low-income families,
___________________
1 Reported violent crimes fell from 1.9 million in 1992 (the peak) to 1.15 million in 2014 (the nadir), then increased to 1.3 million in 2021 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2019).
2 Two-thirds of the fatalities from gun violence among 15- to 24-year-olds between 2007 and 2016 were homicides; the remaining third were suicides.
3 Over a 9-year period ending in 2016, there were 34,000 more firearm deaths among 15–24-year-olds in the poorest counties in the United States than in the richest counties.
NOTES: Figures are the proportion of a group reporting being a victim of a violent crime in 2019. Income data are on crimes reported to police. Age and race/ethnicity data are based on survey reports. Income refers to the household income levels of the victims.
SOURCE: Data from the Supplemental Statistical Tables of the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Criminal Victimization, 2020 (Morgan & Thompson, 2020).
lower exposure to neighborhood crime during adolescence increases intergenerational mobility as measured by their family-income ranking at age 26 (also see Chetty et al., 2014).
Estimating the causal impact of exposure to violence on future outcomes is complicated by the fact that crime tends to be concentrated in neighborhoods characterized by high poverty and racial segregation, factors that can independently worsen children’s trajectories. To address this problem, researchers have taken advantage of the timing of violent incidents in a neighborhood and compared the outcomes of children before and after a violent incident. Such research shows that exposure to community violence just before an assessment negatively affects children’s sleep patterns and stress responses (Heissel et al., 2018) and reduces their attention and impulse control (Sharkey et al., 2012). Other studies linking exposure to violence with medium-term outcomes have found that exposure to violence
increases the likelihood of school dropout (Burdick-Will et al., 2021), increases the risk of offending in young adulthood (Eitle & Turner, 2002), and reduces performance on standardized tests, especially for Black students (Schwartz et al., 2022; Sharkey, 2010; Sharkey et al., 2014).
Some of the strongest evidence on the relationship between exposure to violence and future outcomes comes from school shootings. Such shootings are largely random and uncorrelated with underlying characteristics of the neighborhood or of the students. This allows researchers to estimate the impact of exposure to violence independent of underlying neighborhood or student characteristics. Comparing the outcomes of affected youth with outcomes of nearby similar youth who were not directly exposed to school shootings, researchers have documented negative effects of fatal school shootings on mental health and long-term economic outcomes, including reduced educational attainment and earnings at age 26 (Cabral et al., 2022; Rossin-Slater et al., 2020).
Predictors of Neighborhood Violence
What is known about the predictors of neighborhood violence? Concentrated poverty and racial segregation both contribute to higher rates of violent crime (Cox et al., 2022; Peterson & Krivo, 2010). Historical efforts to segregate Black families through the red-lining maps drawn by the Home Owners Loan Corporation in the 1930s predict both racial segregation and high rates of neighborhood violence today (Mehranbod et al., 2022; Chapters 3 and 8). Research suggests that underinvestment in the community and policing are also highly predictive (Love, 2021). We discuss each of these issues in turn.
Community-level physical disorder, as evidenced by dilapidated buildings, trash, graffiti, and vacant lots, is strongly correlated with crime (Branas et al., 2012; Chen & Rafail, 2022; O’Shea, 2006; Wei et al., 2005). Branas et al. (2018) found causal evidence for this link: In a randomized controlled trial in Philadelphia, some vacant lots were cleaned up and improved, while control lots were left untouched. Over a three-year period, the intervention resulted in significant declines in overall crime and a 29% reduction in violent crime in the low-income neighborhoods where the vacant lots were improved. Other work (Kondo et al., 2016; South et al., 2021) supports these findings, with South et al. (2021) finding impacts on homicide.
Strong correlational research finds a connection between public and private investments and local crime rates. Velez et al. (2012) examined nearly 30 years of home mortgage lending, crime, and demographic data for neighborhoods in the city of Seattle. They found a negative correlation between mortgage investments (i.e., loans per housing unit and total dollars invested) and violent crime in the subsequent two years (and no
relationship between violent crime rates and later mortgage investments), net of other neighborhood factors. Focusing on public investments, Shrider and Ramey (2018) used 10 years of data, also from Seattle, on the Neighborhood Matching Fund program, which supports community-building or physical improvement efforts by local organizations. They found that such investments have a direct effect on reducing violent crime in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and indirectly reduce crime by increasing private mortgage investments.
Civic engagement is another important predictor of neighborhood crime. Sharkey et al. (2017) used changes in the presence of nonprofits across cities and over time to estimate the impact of the establishment of nonprofits on crime. Using 20 years of data in 264 U.S. cities, they found that “10 additional organizations focusing on crime and community life in a city with 100,000 residents leads to a 9-percent reduction in the murder rate, a 6-percent reduction in the violent crime rate, and a 4-percent reduction in the property crime rate” (p. 1215).
Crime Prevention Strategies
Police officers reduce crime, and especially homicide and other violent crime, although the estimated effects vary considerably across settings (Chalfin & McCrary, 2017).4 Estimating a causal impact of police on crime is complicated by the fact that areas with more crime often expand their police force in response. The strongest evidence of causal impacts of police on crime can be derived from sudden increases in funding made possible by the federal allocation of grants to local precincts to hire more police officers (e.g., Evans & Owens, 2007). The effects of an expanded police force vary across racial groups, with disproportionate gains and costs for the Black population (Chalfin et al., 2022). While 10 additional police officers result in one fewer homicide overall, the estimated per capita reduction is twice as large for Black victims as for White victims.
At the same time, the costs of additional police are also disproportionately borne by the Black population, who are more likely to be arrested for “quality of life” infractions such as liquor-law violation and drug possession when the police force increases in size. Policing tactics, not just police manpower, are important in reducing violent crime. More focused interventions such as hot-spot policing, problem-oriented policing, and proactive and disorder policing all generate greater reductions in crime than less discriminate strategies (Chalfin & McCrary, 2017; MacDonald et al., 2016; National Academies, 2018).
___________________
4 The estimated elasticities range from -0.1 to -2, meaning a 10% increase in police personnel reduces crime by 1% to 20%, depending on the study.
As to community policing, recent reviews of the evidence by the Center on Evidence-Based Crime Policy and, especially, a review of experimental studies by Gill et al. (2014), find small negative effects of community policing on violent crime and larger positive effects on citizen satisfaction, perceived disorder, and police legitimacy.
Gun safety regulations can also reduce homicides and firearm-related injuries. Studies evaluating this relationship typically rely upon changes in laws across states and over time to estimate causal effects. Specifically, by examining changes in violence before and after a change in gun safety law within a state and comparing those changes with trends in otherwise similar states that did not change the law, researchers limit the effect of secular trends in violence or differences across states in estimated effects. A review by Cook and Donohue (2017) of gun safety regulation and its impact on violent crime, and more focused work by Donohue et al. (2022) on “right to carry” laws, both found a causal link between an increase in homicides and an expansion of local right-to-carry laws, and also that limiting domestic abusers’ access to guns and imposing sentencing add-ons for violence involving guns appear to be effective in reducing gun violence. Child-access prevention laws can reduce non-fatal gun injuries, and the effects are larger when the law covers older children (DeSimone et al., 2013).
Conclusion 9-1: Crime victimization and exposure have negative consequences for children’s development and long-term economic outcomes. Gun violence is now the leading cause of death among American children. Low-income, Black, and Native American youth are more likely to have these exposures. Rigorous research shows that neighborhood violent crime can be reduced through community investments and engagement, certain kinds of policing, and gun safety regulations.
YOUTH OFFENDING AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM AS DRIVERS OF INTERGENERATIONAL POVERTY
The incarcerated population is overwhelmingly poor and less educated, so it is not surprising that childhood poverty is a strong predictor of future incarceration (Looney & Turner, 2018). There are also significant racial/ethnic disparities: Even conditional on income or education, Black men are twice as likely as White men to have been incarcerated by age 30 (National Research Council et al., 2014). This affects children in two ways: indirectly through adult involvement (including caregiver involvement) in the criminal justice system, and directly through juvenile involvement in the system.
Recent estimates suggest that 1 child in 5 has a biological parent or caregiver who has been convicted of a felony, and 1 in 10 has a parent or caregiver who has served time in prison (Finlay et al., 2021). Parent and caregiver interaction with the criminal justice system can affect children in multiple ways, for example by placing additional strain and stress on the household, increasing financial insecurity, and resulting in the removal of an adult (or even a child through foster care) from the household.
Youth involvement in the criminal justice system also varies considerably by income and race; low-income children and Black and Native American children are much more likely to be arrested and detained (Figure 9-2 shows racial differences in arrest rates for all crimes and violent crimes only). Evidence reviewed below supports a causal link between family income and juvenile involvement in the criminal justice system. In the case of links between criminal justice involvement and children’s economic outcomes in adulthood, the research reviewed below has shown that juvenile detention and incarceration are associated with worse educational outcomes and
NOTES: Figures are arrest rates per 1,000 10–17-year-olds in the resident population. Violent crime includes murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
SOURCE: Data from OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book. https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/special_topics/qa11501.asp?qaDate=2018
increased involvement with the criminal justice system in adulthood, with negative implications for earnings later in life (Aizer & Doyle, 2015; Baron et al., 2023).
There are many reasons why poor youth are more likely to be involved in the criminal justice system. Some relate to criminal justice policy and practices that target low-income communities and populations, but others relate to differences in youth behavior. Regarding the latter, research has found that schooling and educational attainment, exposure to the environmental toxin lead, household income, and the development of socioemotional skills all play important roles in youth offending. Each of these factors is described briefly below. We follow this with a discussion of the effects of the criminal justice system on low-income youth, and especially youth of color, and how the system itself perpetuates intergenerational poverty. We focus on three aspects of the criminal justice system. These include high-frequency police encounters and excessive use of force, juvenile detention and incarceration, and adult interaction (including caregiver interaction) with the criminal justice system.
BOX 9-1
Useful Definitions
Confinement: Detention or incarceration in secure facilities.
Detention: The temporary holding of individuals accused of crime awaiting an adjudication hearing, disposition, or commitment placement.
Disposition: A sentence or punishment.
Incarceration: The long-term confinement of convicted and sentenced offenders.
Juvenile delinquency: The violation of a law of the United States committed by a person prior to his 18th birthday which would have been a crime if committed by an adult.
Status offenses: Noncriminal offenses only applicable to children, such as being truant, running away from home, possessing alcohol or cigarettes.
Technical violation: No crime or arrest, but failure to follow the rules and conditions of probation.
Violent crime: Crimes of violence include rape, robbery, assault, and murder.
SOURCE: Committee generated.
Causes of Youth Offending
Evidence suggests a causal connection between higher quantity and quality of schooling and the committing of fewer crimes. Studies taking advantage of the fact that states have raised their school-leaving age (the age at which a student can legally stop attending high school) at different times have found that children who are legally required to remain in school longer are less likely to commit crimes and/or to be subsequently incarcerated than children who do not face legal constraints (Lochner & Moretti, 2004, for the United States; Machin et al., 2011, for the United Kingdom).
School financing reforms that have increased school spending overall and disproportionately among low-income school districts have also been shown to reduce future offending: A 10% increase in school funding is associated with a 15% reduction in the probability of children in that school district being arrested by age 30 (Baron et al., 2022b). A recent study of North Carolina’s Smart Start early childhood grants also found links to reductions in later youth crime but as pointed out in Chapter 4, these findings might not generalize (Anders et al., 2023).
Reductions in childhood exposure to lead and lead poisoning have also played an important role in the declines in youth crime since the mid-1990s. Children are especially vulnerable to lead exposure because they absorb more lead than adults, and the neurological effects of exposure (including cognitive declines and aggressive behavior) are more consequential in developing brains. The removal of lead from gasoline and paint in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s eliminated two major sources of lead from the environment, and a decline in the incidence of childhood lead poisoning soon followed. Recent work has taken advantage of the timing of these regulations, combined with spatial variation in exposure to lead, to estimate a causal impact of lead on crime. One research strategy focuses on proximity to roads: Children who lived closer to roads before lead was removed from gasoline had higher blood lead levels (BLLs) than those who lived farther away, but as lead was eliminated, these differences declined significantly. These differential declines in child BLLs were then found to be linked with declines in school suspensions, juvenile detention, and adult incarceration (Aizer & Currie, 2019; Grönqvist et al., 2020). Once children are exposed to lead, evidence suggests, providing additional services to those children with elevated levels can be effective in improving outcomes, including reducing arrest rates (Billings & Schnepel, 2018).
Interventions can be effective in changing young people’s decision-making skills and self-control, which in turn can affect their criminal behavior. Using cognitive behavioral therapeutic techniques, researchers conducted a random-assignment evaluation of an intervention designed to encourage youth to consider alternative responses to a provocation. They found that
the intervention, called Becoming a Man (BAM), reduced arrests overall by 35% and arrests for violent crimes by 50%, and it increased high school graduation rates by 19% (Heller et al., 2017).
Finally, family income in adolescence has been shown to have a direct causal impact on criminal activity in some settings. As reviewed in Chapter 6, some families took advantage of the openings of casinos on Native American reservations, which resulted in regular government transfers of casino profits to eligible Tribal members, whether or not they were employed in the casinos. This immediately increased family income for the children residing in Native American families, but not other children. Researchers documented that a $4,000 increase in casino-based transfers reduced criminal offending at age 16 by 22% (Akee et al., 2010).
A second income-based study took advantage of the fact that the federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which provides cash transfers to low-income children with a disability, introduced a new policy requiring children born after a certain date to be recertified at their 18th birthday. This resulted in a large number of children losing this benefit at age 18. Researchers found individuals who lost their SSI benefits were much more likely to be arrested for property crime, but not violent crime, than those who were born before the cut-off date and did not lose their benefits (Deshpande & Mueller-Smith, 2022).
Random-assignment evaluations have also shown that summer employment programs for youth reduce arrests, although they do not improve educational or employment outcomes. The differences in arrests largely disappear after 4 years (Davis & Heller, 2020).
High-Frequency Police Encounters and Excessive Use of Force
As noted above, policing can reduce violent crime, but aggressive policing that results in high-frequency interactions with community members (i.e., stop-and-frisk) has been shown to harm child development.5 Legewie and Fagan (2019) studied the impact of a New York Police Department strategy of saturating high-crime areas with additional police officers instructed to engage in aggressive, order-maintenance policing. Exploiting the quasi-random timing of the roll-out of the strategy across precincts, the authors document that test scores for Black male youth fell after the strategy was rolled out in their neighborhood, consistent with the finding that greater exposure to aggressive policing hurts school performance. They found no corresponding effect for Black girls or Latino students.
___________________
5 In New York City alone, stop-and-frisk (also known as Terry stops) increased from 100,000 stops per year in 2002 to nearly 700,000 by 2011, after which it was outlawed (https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2016/05/16/stop-frisk-ineffective/).
A complementary working paper by Bacher-Hicks and de la Campa (2020) examines the impact of stop-and-frisk policing tactics in New York City. The authors took advantage of the quasi-random assignment or transfer of commanding officers across precincts. They found that the departure of a commanding officer who is more likely to employ stop-and-frisk tactics from a precinct causes a decrease in stop-and-frisk and an increase in educational attainment (high school and college completion) among the young people who were most likely to have been exposed to stop-and-frisk policies under the old regime.
Aggressive policing can also have a negative indirect effect on children and youth who may not be targets themselves but are nonetheless exposed to such tactics. Ang (2021) examined the impact of 627 officer-involved killings on the educational attainment and psychological well-being of 700,000 students in Los Angeles. Ang found that in the days following an officer-involved killing, absenteeism increases and student average GPA falls as much as 0.08 standard deviations in the following semester. In the long run, students exposed to an officer-involved killing in the 9th grade are 3.5% less likely to graduate from high school and 2.5% less likely to enroll in college.
Youth Confinement
Juvenile crime and confinement have fallen by two-thirds over the past 30 years, and the most dramatic declines have occurred for White, Black, Latino, and Native American youth (see Appendix C: Chapter 9). Despite these declines, youth are still incarcerated in the United States at rates far higher than in all other developed democratic countries and many developing countries (Nowak, 2019). The dramatic decline in youth confinement appears to be driven by the declines in crime, and not by changes in the probability of confinement conditional on a juvenile court case, a probability that has held steady at 29% since 2005 (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2021). Moreover, while among all young people involvement in the criminal justice system has declined, Black, Latino, and Native American youth are still significantly more likely than their White counterparts to be arrested, referred to court, and placed in out-of-home facilities after adjudication (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2022).
Most confined youth have not been convicted of a violent crime. Figure 9-3 shows that there were roughly 48,000 young people confined to a facility in 2019, including 16,858 youth in detention centers awaiting trial or sentencing; that is, without a conviction. Of those in detention (data not shown), roughly 4,000 had been charged with status offenses—which are behaviors that are not law violations for adults—or technical violations, and more than 6,000 had been charged with nonviolent offenses (property,
SOURCE: Adapted from the Prison Policy Initiative’s “Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie 2019” (Sawyer, 2019). https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/youth2019.html
drug, public order violations; Sawyer, 2019). Combining youth in detention centers and in long-term secure facilities, Figure 9-4 shows that over half had been charged with or convicted of nonviolent offenses, a pattern that is even more pronounced in residential treatment centers and group homes (Sawyer, 2019).
Detaining or incarcerating juveniles for even short periods results in significant human capital costs for them. Research relying on variations in the sentencing propensities (strictness) of different judges, coupled with the random assignment of youth defendants to judges, shows that youth accused of either nonviolent or violent offenses are significantly more likely to graduate from high school and less likely to be arrested or incarcerated as an adult if they are not detained (Aizer & Doyle, 2015; Baron et al., 2023).6
___________________
6 Aizer and Doyle (2015) study this in the context of detention of any kind in Illinois; and Baron et al. (2023) study this in the context of pretrial detention in Michigan. Effects are similar across the two studies; however, the results from Baron et al. (2023) are precise for violent offenders as well as nonviolent offenders, while the estimated results from Aizer and Doyle are precise only for nonviolent offenders. The estimated magnitudes are similar for both violent and nonviolent offenders.
SOURCE: Adapted from the Prison Policy Initiative’s “Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie 2019” (Sawyer, 2019). https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/youth2019.html
Juvenile incarceration has also been found to harm mental and physical health (Barnert et al., 2016; see Development Services, Inc., 2017, for a review), both of which are strong predictors of adult economic outcomes and future well-being more generally (see Chapter 5 for more detail). One might argue that although detention appears to increase recidivism among those detained, it might reduce juvenile offending through a deterrence effect, justifying a role for juvenile detention in reducing crime and victimization. Among adults, the evidence for the deterrent effect of incarceration is weak (Chalfin & McCrary, 2017). In the case of young people, a large body of research has examined differences in reoffending among those who face different sanctions, based on adult court transfer laws, and has found modest differences (Redding, 2010). Lee and McCrary (2017) studied offending around the time of an individual’s 18th birthday, when sanctions increase immediately, and found a very small reduction.
In addition, fines and fees levied against juveniles may have negative long-term consequences. All 50 states allow juvenile courts to require restitution, although the types of fines and fees may vary, including fees for supervision, evaluation, testing, detention, and court costs (Smith et al., 2022). Descriptive studies show that fines and fees place a significant financial burden on youth and families, especially low-income and Black, Latino, and Native American families, who have disproportionate contact with the criminal justice system (Feierman et al., 2016; Paik & Packard,
2019; Policy Advocacy Clinic, 2017). Piquero and Jennings (2017) found that owing fines, fees, and restitution, as well as the total amounts owed, is correlated with an increase in the likelihood of recidivism among juveniles during the 2-year period following adjudication. Further research is needed to determine whether this reduces intergenerational mobility.
Finally, realigning costs and incentives for incarcerating juveniles more generally so that the localities responsible for sentencing decisions bear the costs of incarceration would lead to greater accountability and, evidence suggests, lower costs, and no increase in crime (Ouss, 2020).
Parent and Caregiver Interaction with the Criminal Justice System: Incarceration, Fines, and Fees
Parent and caregiver incarceration as well as their court fines and fees reduce household resources available for investment in children. In addition to lowering children’s future earnings (Looney & Turner, 2018; Mueller-Smith, 2015), caregiver incarceration is an adverse childhood experience that is associated with increased stress and worse socioeconomic outcomes (Metzler et al., 2017).
Through fines and fees, interaction with the court system increases household debt. The share of prisoners with court fines and sanctions increased from 25% in 1991 to 66% in 2006. As of 2006, the most recent year for which a comprehensive figure is available, an estimated 10 million people had debts of more than $50 billion as a result of their involvement in the criminal justice system; that figure is likely to be higher today (Harris et al., 2010, 2022).7 Fines and fees create a special burden for poor defendants who have difficulty complying with financial sanctions to avoid further penalties (Friedman & Pattillo, 2019). Recent evidence from a randomized control trial in misdemeanor court in Oklahoma County showed that court fines and fees led to warrants for nonpayment, debts in collection, and state garnishment of tax refunds (Pager et al., 2022).
Research has not yet established whether fines and fees affect the intergenerational mobility of children growing up in low-income families, nor is the evidence regarding the impact of parental incarceration on child outcomes entirely consistent (see Appendix C: Chapter 9). However, it is
___________________
7 Many legal infractions are punished through the imposition of fines. Courts can require defendants to pay fees for services and for their court-appointed lawyer (43 states), and they can charge room and board for time in prison (41 states). Failure to pay can result in imprisonment. Since 2008, every state has increased its reliance on fees and fines to raise revenue (see Hayes & Barnhorst, 2020, for an overview and citations).
known that both disproportionately affect the poor and further reduce household resources available for investment in children.
Conclusion 9-2: While reductions in crime and victimization clearly benefit children, some efforts to reduce crime also have the potential to harm them. Aggressive policing has been linked to worse educational outcomes for youth, especially Black and Latino youth. Juvenile detention lowers the rate of high school completion and increases the likelihood of incarceration in adulthood. Declines in juvenile offending, stemming in part from increased investment in children’s education and health, have lowered juvenile detention rates, although significant disparities by race and income remain. Finally, the rise in adult incarceration has increased the number of low-income children with parents/caregivers under supervision, reducing household earnings and increasing household debt. As a result, fewer resources are available to invest in children.
INTERVENTIONS INVOLVING NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE
The committee identified a number of evidence-based interventions that address violence and victimization as well as the ways in which the criminal justice system affects youth outcomes and, ultimately, intergenerational mobility. As in other chapters, the committee highlights policies and programs for which direct evidence has established connections with correlates of intergenerational poverty in adulthood—earnings, educational attainment, and incarceration. As discussed in Chapter 1, we characterize the evidence on some of these programs or policies as “strong” and denote them with an “*.” This indicates that the program’s or policy’s impact on intergenerational poverty is supported by random-assignment evaluation evidence that has been replicated across several sites or by compelling quasi-experimental evidence based on national or multistate data or a scaled-up program.
Policies and programs linked to child and adolescent mortality are also included here (and in Chapter 5, which focuses on health outcomes). Appendix C: Chapter 9 provides details on the interventions listed here. Interventions supported by indirect evidence; that is, those with possible, but not proven, impacts on intergenerational poverty, are briefly listed here and detailed in Appendix C: Chapter 9.
Policy and Program Ideas Based on Direct Evidence
Reducing Juvenile Confinement: Detention and Incarceration
Given the strong evidence linking juvenile detention for even short periods of time to lower high school graduation rates and increases in adult incarceration; the extremely high annual costs of detention (between $85,000 and over $500,000, depending on the state); and the effectiveness of alternatives to incarceration and detention, such as electronic monitoring, community supports, and Intensive Supervision Probation, the committee’s consensus, consistent with previous National Academies reports,8 was that:
- Use juvenile confinement only for youth who pose a serious and immediate threat to public safety. Restoring funding for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which has declined from $565 million in 2002 to $360 million in 2022, to its previous real level ($932 million in current dollars) would provide resources to states and localities to incentivize the use of non-secure settings for juveniles.
Providing incentives to state and local governments to reduce reliance on juvenile detention will likely lead to disproportionate mobility benefits for Black and Native American youth. It is important that any steps taken to reduce juvenile confinement be accompanied by efforts to monitor their possible effects on neighborhood crime levels.
Reducing Offending via Investments in Children
An alternative set of policies can lower the rate of juvenile detention indirectly by reducing future offending. These involve investments in children’s human capital. Policies that have been shown to affect future offending include reducing exposure to lead, which is known to impair cognitive functioning and increase aggression, thereby improving educational outcomes, and influencing behavior through mentorship and other therapeutic interventions. Interventions to reduce lead are discussed in the health chapter; possible ways to boost educational attainment are discussed in the education chapter.
___________________
8 The 2013 National Academies report, Reforming Juvenile Justice: A Developmental Approach, states: “To be clear, secure institutional confinement sometimes has a place in juvenile justice policy, but it should be used only for youth who pose a serious and immediate threat to public safety” (p. 123). A follow-up 2014 National Academies report, Implementing Juvenile Justice Reform: The Federal Role, established seven principles for the federal role in juvenile justice policy, one of which was “Confinement Only When Necessary for Public Safety.”
In addition, the committee identified a promising therapeutic intervention that has been experimentally evaluated in one site and shown in several evaluations to significantly reduce arrests, especially for violent crime, and increase high school graduation rates. Details about our calculations are provided in Appendix C.
- Scale up the BAM program to serve more of the at-risk population. Providing a curriculum based on cognitive behavioral therapeutic approaches, the BAM program is estimated to cost $1,850 per participant per year. The committee considered funding BAM so that it can serve more of the population of at-risk adolescent boys, which is estimated to range between 300,000 and 500,000 annually. Serving 10% of the at-risk population (40,000) would cost a total of $720 million.
Reducing Victimization and Crime
Given the links between community-level physical disorder and crime, it is encouraging that several approaches appear to be successful in reducing disorder and crime. With details in Appendix C: Chapter 9, the committee considered scaling-up two of them.
- Scale up successful programs that remediate vacant lots and abandoned homes. A reasonable approach would be to appropriate $10 million per year over 10 years for a competitive grants process targeted at the 50 cities or jurisdictions with the highest rates of violent crime.
- Improve and increase federal grants to community-based organizations. Maintaining funding for nonprofit organizations at American Rescue Plan levels would support such community organizations.
Although policing has been shown to lower crime, especially homicides, and can be an effective means of reducing premature death and victimization, for any efforts to increase or enhance policing to reduce crime it is important to consider the potential for negative impacts of aggressive policing and frequent stops and searches of low-income and particularly minority youth. This leads us to suggest:
- Expand funding for policing in high-crime neighborhoods and use of effective strategies like community policing. This increased funding could be allocated toward: (a) putting more police on the streets in high-crime cities and neighborhoods; (b) providing technical assistance for local police to implement cost-effective “proactive” policing tactics that target areas of high violence, while also
strengthening the practice of community policing and reducing/eliminating illegal or excessive force; and (c) funding cost-effective efforts to reduce youth violence by building stronger communities and training local residents to de-escalate violent situations.
Reducing Gun-Related Fatalities Among Children and Youth
Fatalities related to firearms are now the leading cause of death among children in the United States. The premature death of low-income children is a measure of extreme immobility. To reduce such fatalities, along with exposure to crime and violence, the committee explored a menu of proven interventions:
- Reduce access to guns in ways that pass constitutional review; promote child access prevention laws, restrictions on right-to-carry laws, limited guns access for domestic abusers, and sentencing add-ons for violence involving firearms.
Policy and Program Ideas Based on Indirect Evidence
As detailed in Appendix C: Chapter 9, a number of additional interventions may be promising avenues for increasing intergenerational mobility by reducing crime and the footprint of the criminal justice system, but still lack strong evidence of their effectiveness.
Ways for courts to reduce the negative impact of caregiver involvement in the criminal justice system:
- Consider the best interest of the child in pre-trial detention and sentencing decisions.
- Consider financial obligations to children in setting court fees and fines.
Promising programs to support at-risk youth:
- The Choose to Change program targets at risk youth and provides at-risk youth with community-based therapy and individualized support.
- Mentoring programs can reduce delinquent behavior and juvenile justice system involvement among youth.
- Restorative justice programs focus on the rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community at large.
- Eliminating fines and fees for juveniles can reduce financial burdens.
- The mental health and gun safety interventions in Chapter 5 have the potential to reduce school shootings.
