What Drives the Relationship Between Early Criminal Involvement and School Dropout?

Objective

We examine the relationship between early criminal involvement and school dropout, and analyze which factors underlie this relationship, making use of administrative data from the Netherlands.

Methods

We start by determining the unconditional correlation between early criminal involvement and school dropout, using a basic ordinary least squares model. As this association is likely to be driven by different factors, we proceed by including an extensive set of observable family and individual characteristics into the estimation model. We further proceed to models that account for the influence of unobservable heterogeneity by estimating school, class, sibling and twin fixed effects.

Results

Criminal involvement is associated with an 11 percentage point higher probability of school dropout. The magnitude of this relationship decreases gradually when we account for larger shares of observed and unobserved heterogeneity. The coefficient in the same-gender twin fixed effects model indicates a 3 percentage point higher probability of school dropout, which is statistically significant at a 10 % level. We also find that the association between criminal involvement and school dropout is stronger if juveniles are involved in severe criminal activities.

Conclusions

We conclude that the observable and unobservable factors for which we account explain around 73 % of the unconditional correlation between criminal involvement and school dropout. The remaining variation likely reflects individual-specific characteristics that are different between same-gender twins. A true treatment effect, if existing, is likely to be relatively small. At the same time, serious criminal behavior appears to causally affect school dropout.

     

A Comparative Study of the Principles Governing Criminal Responsibility in the Major Legal Systems of the World (England, United States, Germany, France, Denmark, Russia, China, and Islamic legal tradition)

The purpose of this survey is to examine the underlying principles of criminal responsibility in selected common law and continental law jurisdictions as well as in the Islamic legal tradition through the lens of comparative law (legal jurisdictions of England, Canada, United States, Germany, France, Denmark, Russia and China are subject to the legal analysis). By conducting a comprehensive legal analysis of the concept of crime in selected legal jurisdictions, this study reveals the common legal features pertinent to the concept of crime that are shared by the major legal systems of the world. Particular attention has been given to the thorny and much debated area of the subjective element of a crime and the standards employed to demarcate between intentional and negligent conduct. Turning to comparative law as an invaluable tool of legal analysis, the study demonstrates that there are more common characteristics than originally anticipated regarding the concept of crime, as well as the basis of the principle of culpability in such major legal systems.     

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