Essays on education and youth crime

Chapter 1: Juvenile crime is a pressing issue in developing countries. In India, 16-18 year-olds are responsible for more than 75 percent of total juvenile crime. In 2016, the Indian government introduced adult punishment for heinous crimes committed by this group of juveniles. Comparing below and above 18- year-old boys in a difference-indifferences framework, this paper finds that the juvenile crime reform led to a significant decrease in murder and rape for the targeted group, providing evidence that some of the most serious violent crime can be deterred through harsher punishment. Overall, these results offer support for a punitive approach to youth crime in contraposition to a welfare approach that favours rehabilitation over punishment. Chapter 2: In 2010, the Government of India engaged in one of the biggest primary schooling reforms by making primary schooling free and compulsory. This was aimed at increasing enrolment rates, along with making provision to hire more qualified teachers and improve school quality. Comparing districts with high- and low- pre-reform schooling provision in a difference-in-differences framework, this paper finds that the schooling reform led to an increase in total enrolment, number of schools and teachers per population, along with an improvement in quality indicators, including pupil-teacher ratios. Further, the results are larger for boys and younger pupils. Chapter 3: Violent youth crime has been rising in the UK in the last 10 years. While youth crime has high social and economic costs, figuring out effective ways to deter youth from committing crime has been of utmost importance to policy makers. In this paper, I study the effect of school exclusion on youth crime. Comparing pupils excluded in a given term, with pupils not excluded till then, but experiencing an exclusion a few weeks after, this paper finds no evidence that school exclusions have important effects on the likelihood of youth committing crime in the short run. This result suggests that disciplinary policies against pupils with disruptive behavior may not be effective at tackling youth crime, but they do not exacerbate the phenomenon either.