The Effects of School Desegregation on Crime

Weiner, David A.; Lutz, Byron F.; Ludwig, Jens

doi:10.3386/w15380

Cited by 50 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Scholars have connected the widespread implementation of school desegregation plans in the late 1960s and 1970s with increased educational attainment for black students (Guryan 2004;Reber 2010), higher income (Ashenfelter et al 2006;Johnson 2011), improvements in adult health (Johnson 2011), and decreased rates of homicide victimization and arrests (Weiner et al 2009). Many studies have found that segregation widens the racial test score gap, with most (but not all) concluding that schools play at least as important a role as neighborhoods (e.g., Cook and Evans 2000;Card and Rothstein 2007;Vigdor and Ludwig 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

School Segregation, Educational Attainment, and Crime: Evidence from the End of Busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg *

Billings¹,

Deming²,

Rockoff³

2013

The Quarterly Journal of Economics

198

122

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We study the end of race-based busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools (CMS). In 2001, school boundaries in CMS were redrawn dramatically, and half of students received a new assignment. Using addresses measured prior to the policy change, we compare students in the same neighborhood that lived on opposite sides of a newly drawn boundary. We find that both white and minority students score lower on high school exams when they are assigned to schools with more minority students. We also find decreases in high school graduation and four-year college attendance for whites and large increases in crime for minority males. We conclude that the end of race-based busing widened racial inequality, despite efforts by CMS to mitigate the effect of segregation through compensatory resource allocation. JEL Codes: I20, I24.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

School Segregation, Educational Attainment, and Crime: Evidence from the End of Busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg *

Billings¹,

Deming²,

Rockoff³

2013

The Quarterly Journal of Economics

198

122

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“…41 The negative relationship of police representation gaps with the termination of school desegregation plans fits the same pattern. However, the implausibly large and significant effects on the professional category of workers especially may indicate that the court-ordered end of desegregation was 40 Data on school district desegregation start and end dates are from: Guryan (2004, Lutz (2005), and Weiner et al (2006). 41 To explore these issues further, we re-estimate the non-parametric model of Section 3.1 adding dummy variables to account for years before and after desegregation start and years before and after desegregation end.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Temporary Affirmative Action Produce Persistent Effects? A Study of Black and Female Employment in Law Enforcement

Miller

Segal

2012

Review of Economics and Statistics

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This paper exploits the rich variation in timing and outcomes of 140 employment discrimination lawsuits brought against US law enforcement agencies to estimate the cumulative employment effects of temporary, externally-imposed affirmative action (AA). Using confidential administrative data on 479 of the largest state and local agencies spanning a period of 33 years, we show that AA plans increase black employment for all ranks of police, averaging between 4.5 and 6.2 percentage points over and above any prevailing trends in the country. We find no erosion of black employment gains from AA in the decade and a half following AA termination. Nevertheless, in departments whose plans are terminated, we find a significant decrease in black employment growth relative to departments whose plans continue. In contrast to our findings for blacks, we find only marginal employment gains for women and none at higher ranks.

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“…That outcome has not been measured in the experimental studies. There is some suggestive evidence from studies of court-ordered school desegregation that the net system-wide effect of re-sorting disadvantaged youth across social settings is to reduce violent crime (Weiner, Lutz and Ludwig, 2010). De-concentrating poverty is a long-term project that has much to recommend it, but the potential effects on crime are not well understood.…”

Section: B Jobs and Income Supportsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economical Crime Control

Cook

Ludwig²

2010

Self Cite

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This paper is the introductory chapter for the forthcoming NBER volume Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs. The Great Recession has led to cuts in criminal justice expenditures, and the trend towards ever-higher incarceration rates that has been underway since the 1970s in the U.S. appears to have turned the corner. That raises the question of whether the crime drop can be sustained. State and local revenue shortfalls have engendered intense interest in cost-cutting measures that do not sacrifice public safety. We argue that there is some reason for optimism, simply because current criminal justice allocations and policies appear to be inefficient -more crime control could be accomplished with fewer resources. The crime problem is often framed as a debate between those who favor a "tough" punitive approach versus those who favor a "soft" approach that focuses on prevention or remediation programs. But the canonical economic model of crime from Becker (1968) suggests that the decision to commit crime involves a weighing of both benefits and costs, implying that both tough and soft approaches might be useful. It is ultimately an empirical question about how the marginal crime-control dollar may be most effectively deployed. The evidence presented in this edited volume suggests that a more efficient portfolio of crime-control strategies would involve greater attention to enhancing the certainty rather than the severity of punishment for criminal behavior, stimulating private-sector cooperation for controlling crime, and making strategic investments in the human capital of at-risk populations, including in particular efforts to improve the social-cognitive skills of justice-system-involved populations. To help illustrate the magnitude of the inefficiencies within the current system, the essay concludes with a thought experiment that considers how much additional crime-prevention could be obtained by reverting average sentence lengths back to 1984 levels (midway through the Reagan era) and redirecting the freed-up resources (on the order of $12 billion annually) to alternative uses.

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The Effects of School Desegregation on Crime

Cited by 50 publications

References 70 publications

School Segregation, Educational Attainment, and Crime: Evidence from the End of Busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg *

School Segregation, Educational Attainment, and Crime: Evidence from the End of Busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg *

Does Temporary Affirmative Action Produce Persistent Effects? A Study of Black and Female Employment in Law Enforcement

Economical Crime Control

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