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 Why Does Education Reduce Crime?
27 CitationsSchool indiscipline and crime, the positive externality of education on crime: insights from sub-saharan africa, public school funding, school quality, and adult crime, diversion in the criminal justice system, nber working paper series the effects of teacher quality on adult criminal justice contact, the effects of teacher quality on adult criminal justice contact, intergenerational spillover effects of language training for refugees, social returns to private choice effects of charter schools on behavioral outcomes, arrests, and civic participation, discontinuities in the age-victimization profile and the determinants of victimization, school and crime, 69 references, crime, compulsory schooling laws and education.
The Crime Reducing Effect of EducationEducation, work, and crime: a human capital approach, the effect of school starting age policy on crime: evidence from u.s. microdata, in school and out of trouble the minimum dropout age and juvenile crime, larrikin youth: new evidence on crime and schooling, school's out... forever: a study of juvenile crime, at-risk youths and teacher strikes, market wages and youth crime, compulsory education and the benefits of schooling, better schools, less crime, related papers. Showing 1 through 3 of 0 Related Papers
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Keeping kids “off the streets” may matter more than improving their labor market prospects Reduced criminality is a beneficial consequence of education policies that raise the school leaving age. There are two possible explanations: First, extra time spent in the education system increases labor market prospects and makes crime relatively less profitable (the longer-term effect). Second, children in the classroom are kept off the streets and have less free time to commit crimes (the temporary “incapacitation” effect). A new IZA discussion paper by Brian Bell , Rui Costa and Stephen Machin analyzes both mechanisms within the same empirical setting. The paper studies how crime reductions occurred in a sequence of state-level dropout age reforms enacted between 1980 and 2010 in the United States. The authors find that these reforms changed the shape of crime-age profiles, reflecting both a temporary incapacitation effect and a more sustained crime-reducing effect in the longer run. In contrast to previous research looking at earlier education reforms, crime reduction does not arise solely as a result of education improvements. The reforms studied in the new paper at best had very modest effects on average educational attainment and wages. The authors instead interpret the observed longer run effect as “dynamic incapacitation” – which essentially means that avoiding trouble during the school-age years keeps people on the right track later in life. Featured Paper:Share this article Reader InteractionsBrowser does not support script.  Why Does Education Reduce Crime?01 March 2022 A paper by Brian Bell and co-authors, recently published in the Journal of Political Economy (March 2022) investigates the relationship between education and crime rates, with a specific focus on state-level compulsory school leaving (CSL) laws in the United States. These laws require some students to stay in school longer and have been shown to simultaneously increase education levels and reduce crime rates. The study challenges previous research, which suggests that the reduction in crime rates arising from these CSL laws occurs primarily due to the increased productivity resulting from higher education levels. Instead, the authors find that the main mechanism behind this crime reduction is what they call "dynamic incapacitation". This refers to the fact that crime rates peak at age 18, and keeping teenagers in school during this period can prevent them from engaging in criminal activities and avoid proceeding down the wrong path. The study used changes in compulsory school leaving laws in the US between 1980 and 2010 to estimate the short- and long-run responses of arrest rates for those affected by an increase in the school leaving age. The results show that there is a clear reduction in crime rates as a result of these changes, with an increase in the school leaving age reducing the arrest rate by 6% for those affected. Additionally, arrest rates remain lower even many years later. Interestingly, the study finds no evidence that productivity-enhancing factors resulting from higher education levels are driving the reduction in crime rates for the cohorts of American youth they studied. This is because the CSL reforms adopted in the US since the 1980s have been affecting an increasingly small group of youths. These students are likely harder to educate and less likely to progress to college, even if they remain in school longer. The authors suggest that policymakers should consider the dynamic effects of education policy when designing crime reduction strategies. Keeping young people busy and off the streets during crucial periods of their lives is likely to reap benefits in both the short and long run. The study also suggests that extending the age of compulsory schooling further may have small effects on subsequent economic outcomes, such as wages and employment. However, the sustained reduction in crime rates after schooling has finished makes the reforms cost-effective. In conclusion, the study provides important insights into the relationship between education and crime rates. The authors' findings have significant implications for policymakers and researchers interested in reducing crime rates in the United States and beyond In this story Professor of Economics Latest news 30 August 2024 King's alumna Errollyn Wallen appointed Master of the King's MusicErrollyn Wallen CBE, who studied composition at King’s, is the first Black woman to become Master of…  Dulled emotional reactions in individuals with anhedonia linked with prolonged activity of the brain's attentional networks.Anhedonia-related emotional blunting is linked with abnormally sustained activity in brain areas…  New Vice Dean International appointedDr Julia Philippou to assume new role from 2 September 2024.  New Director of Cicely Saunders Institute appointedProfessor Catherine Evans to assume new role from 2 September 2024.
Article contentsThe economic benefits of education for the reduction of crime.
Historically, social observers have repeatedly noted a correlation between education and crime, observing that individuals with lower levels of education are more likely to commit crime. However, the relationship between education and crime is complex, and it is important to clearly establish causality to determine if investing in education can effectively reduce crime. Merely observing persistent educational-attainment inequalities between offenders and non-offenders is not sufficient to make any causal claims about the underlying relationship between education and crime. Many other factors can influence an individual’s decision to stay in school or commit a crime, and these factors need to be accounted for when estimating the relationship between education and crime. Economists theoretically predicted in the late 1960s that education, via its positive effect on future earnings, would reduce the probability of criminal participation. Empirical studies have since used various econometric methods to establish that, on average, education has a strong causal crime-reducing effect. One strand of this literature has established in various contexts that individuals from cohorts forced by law to stay longer in school were much less likely to end up in court or prison. There is, however, still much to be discovered about the effect of education on crime, such as the underlying mechanisms related to income or non-cognitive effects, and heterogeneities by context, education level and quality, and individual characteristics. Overall, economists widely agree that investing in education is an efficient public-spending strategy to effectively reduce crime.
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Character limit 500 /500 Why Does Education Reduce Crime?IZA Discussion Paper No. 11805 63 Pages Posted: 24 Sep 2018 London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) Stephen J. MachinLondon School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Centre for Economic Performance (CEP); London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Department of Economics  Prior research shows reduced criminality to be a beneficial consequence of education policies that raise the school leaving age. This paper studies how crime reductions occurred in a sequence of state-level dropout age reforms enacted between 1980 and 2010 in the United States. These reforms changed the shape of crime-age profiles, reflecting both a temporary incapacitation effect and a more sustained, longer run crime reducing effect. In contrast to the previous research looking at earlier US education reforms, crime reduction does not arise solely as a result of education improvements, and so the observed longer run effect is interpreted as dynamic incapacitation. Additional evidence based on longitudinal data combined with an education reform from a different setting in Australia corroborates the finding of dynamic incapacitation underpinning education policy-induced crime reduction. Keywords: crime age profiles, school dropout, compulsory schooling laws JEL Classification: I2, K42 Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation Brian Bell (Contact Author)London school of economics & political science (lse) ( email ). Houghton Street London, WC2A 2AE United Kingdom London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) ( email )Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE United Kingdom London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Department of Economics ( email )Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on ssrn, paper statistics, related ejournals, iza institute of labor economics discussion paper series. Subscribe to this free journal for more curated articles on this topic European Economics: Labor & Social Conditions eJournalSubscribe to this fee journal for more curated articles on this topic Labor: Human Capital eJournal
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Unlocking Potential
Back to School: A Common-Sense Strategy to Lower Recidivism The United States makes up just 5 percent of the global population but is home to 20 percent of the world’s incarcerated people . More than 95 percent of the 1.5 million people in U.S. prisons will eventually be released, regardless of whether they are ready to secure a job. Thanks to evidence-based reforms, the country’s justice systems have made marked improvement s in reducing recidivism rates in recent years, but more than a third of the people released from prison will find themselves back behind bars within three years. Breaking this cycle of incarceration will require lawmakers to advance program and policy changes that have been left on the table. Few evidence-based reforms have as much untapped potential as postsecondary education in prison. Incarcerated people who participate in such programs are 48 percent less likely to recidivate than those who do not. The odds of recidivism decrease as incarcerated people achieve higher levels of education. These findings are based on a comprehensive study recently updated by the RAND Corporation, which analyzed rigorous research published from 1980 through 2017. It’s time for our policymakers to act. Congress can make the largest impact by repealing the restrictions set by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which bars incarcerated people from accessing need-based Pell grants. State policymakers can also do their part by eliminating restrictions on in-state funding sources that many students in prison would otherwise be eligible for. Removing these barriers will dramatically expand access to quality postsecondary education for people in prison, and in turn will prepare those students to secure jobs and other opportunities and help them avoid recidivating upon release. For example, a report released earlier this year by Vera and the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality found that repealing the federal ban on Pell grants for people in prison would do the following, based on 50 percent of eligible students participating:
Postsecondary education in prison as a strategy to reduce recidivism is not a new idea. Corrections and education professionals have been successfully putting these programs to the test for decades. (It also stands to reason that such programs may provide employers with a larger pool of skilled workers to hire.) Here are a few programs across the country whose outcomes speak to the transformative power of postsecondary education in prison: California:
The success of these programs present more compelling evidence that expanding access to postsecondary education is a common-sense approach with a strong track record. Repealing the Pell ban and other state-level barriers to postsecondary education without eligibility restrictions will produce the biggest benefits for the greatest number of people possible. It’s time for Congress to act.
PUBLICATION Investing in FuturesA global effort to counter extremism through educationSubscribe to the center for middle east policy newsletter, madiha afzal madiha afzal fellow - foreign policy , center for middle east policy , strobe talbott center for security, strategy, and technology , center for asia policy studies. Monday, January 25, 2021
This brief is part of the Brookings Blueprints for American Renewal & Prosperity project. A review of Obama and Trump administration policiesPolicy recommendations. This brief argues that we should productively use the current moment of reckoning with the post-9/11 era to redefine our paradigm for countering extremism and terrorism around the world in a manner that is both comprehensive and cost-effective. Taking stock 20 years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, it is clear that the global position of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group (IS) has weakened, owing to successful (and enormously costly) counterterrorism efforts led by the United States. Yet other groups that are more locally and regionally focused, in many cases splinters of al-Qaida and IS, are resurging or ascendant. Terrorism remains a problem around the world, and the extremism that fuels it remains largely unaddressed. Efforts undertaken to counter extremism over the last 20 years were belated when they began, and were never as concerted as the effort to counter terrorism. Efforts undertaken to counter extremism over the last 20 years were belated when they began, and were never as concerted as the effort to counter terrorism. They were also fragmented and focused on a bottom-up approach, when research informs us that extremism is in many ways driven from the top down, via country-level education systems, laws, and politics. This Blueprint therefore proposes a new paradigm for countering extremism, based on a top-down, country-level approach that focuses on education and equipping citizens with critical thinking skills to counter extremist propaganda. To be specific, I propose a U.S.-led, United Nations-centered, global effort to counter extremism through education and the media. One way to operationalize this would be to have member states sign a U.N. convention on education and extremism, and have them, under that framework, reach an agreement according to which signatory countries would commit to making formal education systems and media compliant with a set of guidelines — including removing hate material from curricula and teaching tolerance, teaching critical thinking, teaching how to counter extremist propaganda, and teaching how to decipher the credibility of information seen or received through both mainstream and social media. The benefits of this approach would extend to countering all forms of extremism. Back to top ⇑ Nineteen years after the attacks on September 11, 2001 and the declaration of the subsequent U.S.-led “war on terror,” the devastation wrought by the global coronavirus pandemic has forced an American reckoning with the post-9/11 era. This reckoning had already begun in recent years, with the effort to wind down the “forever wars,” especially the war in Afghanistan, and a consideration of the enormous costs — in lives and money — that they have entailed. That the daily domestic death toll of the pandemic has been consistently exceeding that of the 9/11 attacks, puts the concern into sharp relief — as do the events of January 6, with pro-Trump extremists staging an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol — lending an urgency to the desire to turn the page . The underlying argument is that we should focus instead on long-ignored and urgent domestic problems — socioeconomic inequality, persistent racism and the threat of white supremacy, preparing for the next pandemic — and contend with other pressing foreign policy concerns, including the rise of China . But with this urgency, there is a danger that we will move on without absorbing the lessons learned from the last two decades — and perhaps worse, shelving lessons yet unlearned — and without a concerted approach to tackling the twin problems of terrorism and extremism, which remain significant globally. In 2019, nearly 8,500 terrorist attacks took place around the world, almost the same number as in 2012. What’s more, the extremism and ideologies that fuel these attacks remain intact. This brief argues that we should productively use the current moment of reckoning with the post-9/11 era to redefine our paradigm for countering extremism and terrorism around the world in a manner that is both comprehensive and cost-effective. Over the past two decades, American efforts have focused disproportionately on countering terror — and have seen success in protecting the U.S. homeland. But the effort at countering violent extremism (CVE), when it finally began during the second Obama administration, was belated, and based on a bottom-up approach that was piecemeal, fragmented, and ultimately insufficient to counter extremism in any comprehensive way. This Blueprint proposes a new paradigm for countering extremism, based on a top-down, state-level approach that focuses on education and equipping citizens with critical thinking skills to counter extremist propaganda. This is based on research across contexts which shows that the most important policies that affect attitudes and can lead to extremism are driven from the top down — via education systems, laws, and politics — and not the bottom up. I recommend reform of national education policies to counter extremism, but recognize that targeting specific countries, or using bilateral approaches, is a non-starter. Therefore, I propose a U.S.-led, United Nations-centered, global effort to counter extremism through formal education and the media. One proposal to operationalize this would be to have member states sign a U.N. convention on education and extremism, and have them, under that framework, reach an agreement according to which signatory countries would commit to making education systems and media compliant with a set of guidelines. This approach, ambitious though it is, would be analogous to that followed by the Paris agreement to counter climate change. One could use a less transformative model as well, such as subsuming these guidelines and recommendations under the education goal of the Sustainable Development Goals, but that less visible approach could prove less effective. The positive externalities of focusing on education would extend beyond their effect on extremism: This would also counter disinformation campaigns and the phenomenon of fake news, and the effect on attitudes could in turn have far-reaching effects on various forms of violence. One note — the arguments made here are based on research on jihadist extremism, but the solutions proposed are universal, and apply to other forms of extremism, including right-wing extremism in the United States, as well. Assessing the jihadist threat around the worldThe exact total cost of the post-9/11 wars to date is disputed, but the upper-bound estimate , from the Costs of War project at Brown University, posits that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and money spent on homeland security have cost the United States $6.4 trillion through 2019. If that is an overestimate, it is difficult to argue that the amount spent isn’t at least half that number. If success can be measured in terms of preventing a large-scale terrorist attack on the United States, the huge resources expended on counterterrorism, intelligence and the homeland security architecture after the attacks of September 11 have yielded results: just over 100 people have been killed in jihadist attacks in the United States since then. Al-Qaida as an organization is far weaker than it once was, owing to U.S. counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan — including as many as 540 targeted drone strikes during the Obama administration. While the ungoverned vacuum left in Iraq led to the rise of the Islamic State group (IS), the concerted fight against it begun by the Obama administration and continued during the Trump presidency largely dismantled its “caliphate.” U.S. and international efforts in response to IS’s recruitment of foreign fighters have severely hindered the ability of foreign fighters to travel and thus of terrorist organizations to recruit them. Osama bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi have been killed. A key al-Qaida leader, Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was killed in Iran in an Israeli spy operation in August 2020. The fiscal costs of all of this to the United States have been extraordinary, and the loss of life significant, but the American homeland is, for now, undeniably safer. With the fall of the IS “caliphate” and the decimation of al-Qaida’s leadership, the major terrorist threat the United States faces domestically is no longer jihadist, but white supremacist . Indeed, those who contend that the war on terror must no longer occupy a central position in our national priorities point to the fact that the direct jihadist threat to the U.S. has abated. (In December, though, the Trump administration dismantled a Pentagon office focused on IS, a worrying action that may have led to gaps in the provision of counterterrorism information to the incoming administration). Yet jihadist terrorism remains a significant problem globally, including from regional al-Qaida and IS affiliates that have proven lethal to their local populations. Two devastating terrorist attacks on the same day in November 2020 in Vienna and Kabul attest to this. On the morning of November 2, 2020, three gunmen stormed Kabul University, one of the oldest universities in Afghanistan, killing 35 students and professors. Sixteen of the students killed were studying policy and public administration , hoping to help build their country’s future. A local IS affiliate, Islamic State – Khorasan Province (IS-K), claimed responsibility for the attack. In Vienna, Austria that evening, a 20-year old man shot and killed four people in a crowded district; he had been convicted of attempting to join IS in the past. IS claimed responsibility for his attack. Al-Qaida still survives in Afghanistan, and recent reports have noted its resilience ; a spate of al-Qaida leaders was killed in special operations in Afghanistan and Syria during the last week of October 2020. Regional affiliates, including al-Shabab in Somalia, operate from the Maghreb to East Asia. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed an attack on the Pensacola naval air base in Florida in December 2019. The Taliban, which gave haven to al-Qaida in Afghanistan in the run up to 2001, is now a legitimate political actor domestically in that country and internationally, having militarily held off the United States and signed a peace deal with it in February 2020. It is at its most powerful since 2001. Despite the main condition of the U.S.-Taliban deal signed in Doha for the Taliban being counterterrorism commitments in exchange for a complete American withdrawal, the U.N. reports that the Taliban has not cut ties with al-Qaida. It is also worth noting that the Doha deal, seen in the region as a victory for the Taliban and as “ America’s surrender ,” is perceived as a boon to the jihadist movement at large. Al-Qaida said the deal signified the “enemy acknowledging its defeat” and congratulated the Taliban on its “great victory” over America and its allies. In Nigeria, the terrorist group Boko Haram has waged a deadly insurgency in the country’s northeast since 2009, and in recent years in the Lake Chad region at the meeting point of Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, and Niger. A splinter group, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), declared allegiance to IS in 2015. It is Boko Haram’s more brutal faction. Boko Haram and ISWAP have inflicted more violence on state actors in Nigeria since 2018 than at any other point in the insurgency. The Pakistani Taliban (also known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP) killed tens of thousands of Pakistanis between 2007 and 2015, using Pakistan’s alliance with the U.S. in its war in Afghanistan as justification for its insurgency. The TTP was in retreat after an extensive Pakistani military operation that began against it in 2014, but has reconsolidated and reemerged in 2020 in its former strongholds in the country’s northwest. TTP militants killed at least 40 Pakistani soldiers between March and September 2020. Related Books Madiha Afzal January 2, 2018 Vanda Felbab-Brown, Harold Trinkunas, Shadi Hamid November 28, 2017 Daniel L. Byman May 2, 2019 Finally, attacks by individual actors who draw inspiration from global jihadist groups — lone wolves — have continued in the U.S. and Europe. In October, an attacker at the Notre Dame church in Nice, France, killed 3, in the aftermath of the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by the magazine Charlie Hebdo. (The investigation is ongoing, but no credible group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, leading to speculation that the attack was inspired and not directed.) Taking stock, the position of core al-Qaida and IS, terrorist groups that focus on a global jihad — and thus pose a direct threat to the United States — has weakened. Other groups that are more locally and regionally focused, in many cases splinters of al-Qaida and IS, are resurging or ascendant. There are factions and differences within the jihadist movement; there is no one leader it looks to, as it did to bin Laden, and later Baghdadi to an extent. Yet the ideological overlap across various jihadist groups remains, and fighters often cross from one group to the other. In Pakistan, they switched from the Afghan jihad to the Kashmir-focused jihad in the 1990s. Those Talibs who are unhappy with the U.S.-Taliban deal are now being recruited by its rival, IS-K. In assessing threats to the United States, we cannot rule out local and regional terrorist actors that can cross lines to boost groups that may directly target America. The question of extremismExtremism and terrorism are twin problems: extremism can lead directly to violence and it also gives terrorist groups oxygen by providing them an environment for survival, in terms of logistical and financial support, potential recruits, and most broadly, ideological space. Yet while significant resources have been spent on countering terrorism, the project of understanding and tackling the root causes of jihadist extremism around the world largely remains incomplete. There are several questions relevant to understanding extremism: who becomes a terrorist, and what leads people to support terrorist groups? Considerable attention was paid to this topic in the aftermath of 9/11. The initial conventional wisdom — that the poor and uneducated become terrorists and support terrorist groups — was debunked, and replaced with an amalgam of correlates of extremism, often not lending themselves to quick resolution or simple explanation: grievance, alienation, deficiencies in human rights, lack of political representation. Not enough attention was paid to the ideological appeal of jihadism. Neither was there a focus on understanding attitudes on a spectrum of extremism to violent extremism. The Obama administration’s approach to CVE, as the name suggests, only looked at the latter. It thus missed the structure and determinants of non-violent support —logistical, ideological, and financial — for extremist groups. In interdisciplinary research on views on the Pakistan Taliban and Boko Haram, I have studied what drove support for these groups among the population in Pakistan and Nigeria respectively, and how it relates to education. In my work on Pakistan, I found that extremism in the population is driven by the decisions taken by the Pakistani state. The state’s curricula, its laws, and its politics have fostered in its citizens a worldview that aligns with terrorist group propaganda and thus makes them vulnerable to it. The Pakistani government education system, in particular, is a vehicle used to impart a biased, one-sided view of the world, one that victimizes Pakistan and places the blame for its problems on the rest of the world and fosters an “us-versus-them” mindset. This, I found, is a particular problem in high school history textbooks — in which information is presented without sources, and a one-sided historical narrative with half-truths and errors is presented as fact. Schooling in Pakistan focuses on rote memorization and does not teach critical thinking, which would allow students to recognize and counter propaganda when they see it. As a result, when Pakistanis encounter extremist propaganda, in many ways consistent with the exclusionary view of the world they find in their history textbooks, they buy into it. In interviews I conducted in Pakistani high schools, I met two students with views sympathetic to an extremist group who had been influenced directly by fundamentalist propaganda from that group, and found themselves unable to counter it. Other students had bought wholesale into videos or photos they had seen online which purported to show people being trained in America to attack Pakistan, a conspiracy theory. Bangladesh, a country similar to Pakistan (and once its eastern half), offers a striking counter to Pakistan in terms of the prevalence of extremism and terrorism in the country. I’d argue it is the decisions taken by the Bangladeshi state that have ensured extremism remains checked in the country, from the structure of the constitution to its politics and education system. In a non-democratic context, Morocco also provides an example of how much the state matters: its monarchy ensures — often heavy-handedly — the espousal of a “tolerant” Islam in the population. In the Nigerian case, I found that citizens’ support for Boko Haram rests on grievances in Nigeria’s north against the state-imposed Western system of education — one seen as insufficiently representative and responsible for the north’s backwardness (because it was imposed on an unfamiliar population after independence as part of Nigeria’s “federal character”) — and associated with the elite’s corruption. In each of these contexts, formal education systems and curricula — in particular, those in secondary or high school – play a large role in defining attitudes in the population. (University education, I found, was less of a problem, and also countered the problematic curricula taught in high school.) Education policy, of course, is entirely endogenous, and is determined by any country’s notions of nationalism and identity. The education system can also be a clear venue and indeed the tool to address the roots of extremism and violent extremism, by promoting tolerance and teaching critical thinking. Both Pakistan and Nigeria have focused on defeating terrorist groups militarily, and have left the roots of extremism in their countries unaddressed . This helps explain the stubborn resilience and resurgence of the TTP and Boko Haram despite military attempts to defeat them — and why those attempts succeeded only temporarily. Closely connected to identifying the root causes of extremism is the question of the ideological appeal of jihadism: an ideology which typically centers around establishing a stringent Islamic system of governing — whether across countries or more locally — and emphasizes an existential opposition to Western values and policies (though with Donald Trump’s presidency and the rise of China, the focus on targeting America as a superpower to be attacked may have lost some of its ideological appeal). As I mentioned above, in many ways such ideological propaganda was consistent with the worldview presented in Pakistani textbooks. The Obama administration’s CVE approach focused on counter-messaging against extremist propaganda and on making it harder to access it, including by targeting group messaging apps such as Telegram. Yet there is still a preponderance of fake news and conspiracy theories — of all forms, but especially on social media and on messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, etc. — that serve the purposes of extremist propaganda. One way that extremism can be countered is if individuals are able to identify such misinformation when they receive it. This can be accomplished by teaching students the ability to evaluate information based on its sources, and critical thinking skills in schools. The applicability of this approach to countering right-wing extremism in the United States should also be clear. In a 2016 piece calling for more attention to be paid to efforts to counter extremism, Michael Morell, Sandy Winnefeld, and Samantha Vinograd, senior intelligence, defense, and national security officials in the Obama administration, wrote that countering violent extremism “efforts have paled in comparison to our ‘hard’ counter-terrorism operation”: “For every 1,000 hours we spent in the Situation Room talking about how to stop existing extremists from attacking us, we spent perhaps one hour talking about how to prevent the creation of terrorists in the first place. And, for every million dollars the U.S. government spent on stopping those trying to attack us, we spent perhaps one dollar on countering radical extremism.” During the second Obama administration, there was a flurry of activity on CVE on the part of both the State Department and the White House. A White House Summit was held in February 2015, and a Leaders’ Summit was held in New York City in September 2015 with representatives from multilateral institutions and governments and civil society organizations around the world. The key themes around the CVE approach were that it should be centered at the local, community level, identifying communities vulnerable to extremism; that local leaders — and governments and civil society organizations — should be involved in tailored interventions; and that there needed to be a focus on building resilience. Youth engagement was a key component, and there was a call for women to be involved in CVE efforts. But what did all of this really mean? Behind a well-intentioned effort and sensible-sounding concepts, this approach did not clearly identify the drivers of extremism beyond recognizing that grievance was important. And ultimately, by concentrating on the ground up, it missed the fact that the most important policies that affect attitudes in the broad population are driven from the top down — via education systems, laws, and politics. Anything else — focusing on local or grassroots or community-level interventions — is missing the forest for the trees, or taking action that is too piecemeal and narrowly targeted, akin to putting out small individual fires. President Barack Obama recognized the importance of country-level factors during his speech at the White House summit, where he said : “When governments oppress their people, deny human rights, stifle dissent or marginalize ethnic and religious groups, or favor certain religious groups over others, it sows the seeds of extremism and violence.” Despite that recognition, the focus of CVE efforts remained a grassroots one — perhaps partly out of pragmatism and a recognition that this approach would be more palatable than to have governments sign up for a wholesale reconfiguration. The administration’s CVE efforts also lumped thinking about homegrown threats with thinking about international and regional threats. This approach focused on putting on the brakes on at the cusp of violence (by definition), and not earlier on the extremism spectrum; it also included deradicalization by incorporating reintegration and rehabilitation programs for former extremists. All of this is necessarily costly and fragmented. The focus in many ways was on treatment, rather than prevention. Domestically, the approach also faced criticism that it singled out Muslim communities for surveillance and looked upon them with suspicion. The Trump administration didn’t fully dismantle the Obama administration’s CVE approach, but it did not follow through on it either. It did away with the term CVE — which it considered too “politically correct” — and replaced it in terms of rhetoric with “radical Islamic terrorism,” and on paper with counterterrorism. The Trump administration’s counterterrorism strategy in 2018, though, did acknowledge the importance of prevention “to thwart terrorist radicalization and recruitment,” adding that “prevention works.” The Trump approach ultimately was characterized more by “a lack of consistent leadership, strategy, coordination, coherence, and prioritization” than a systematic dismantling of the Obama strategy. The Obama CVE policy thus essentially stalled during the Trump presidency. All in all, the U.S. approach to CVE resulted in an effort in which the whole did not add up to the sum of its parts, which focused on the wrong level, and which ultimately never really took off. The main recommendation of this paper is a proposal to comprehensively address the root causes of extremism, especially as they relate to the early stages of the extremism spectrum, such that we can effectively block the later stages from developing. Crucially, it is an approach in which the main costs need not be directly borne by America. Firstly, I propose reform of national education policies — focusing on formal schooling systems, specifically history curricula in elementary and secondary schools — to counter extremism. Country legal systems could be another potential target — say blasphemy laws — but those are all but impossible to change, as the Pakistani case makes clear. Education may be the most practical place to begin reform, but it is still likely to receive pushback. Curriculum reform flies in the face of countries wanting to use their education systems to inculcate their own sense of nationalism, sometimes narrowly defined and exclusionary, which in turn can sow the seeds for extremism. There is a reason those countries choose the curricula they do — it is in service to their own nationalism. This recommendation thus needs to be operationalized not bilaterally, nor by focusing on specific countries — which would receive clear backlash for being a “Western agenda” — but by working through the United Nations with its unique platform to bring countries around the world on board. The biggest hurdle would be for the states to recognize with urgency that formal education is key to addressing extremism — it can foster it, and conversely, is the key tool to counter it — and that the benefits of ratifying this agreement would accrue to the states themselves. The best model to follow might be the Paris agreement to counter climate change, which was signed in 2016 within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change . The goal would be near universal membership of a parallel U.N. convention on education, and an agreement reached according to which signatory countries would commit to making educational systems compliant with a set of guidelines. The biggest hurdle would be for the states to recognize with urgency that formal education is key to addressing extremism — it can foster it, and conversely, is the key tool to counter it — and that the benefits of ratifying this agreement would accrue to the states themselves (with positive externalities for others). The way could be led by the developed world, including by the United States, but any bloc of countries could join the U.S. in being initial signatories. Within the U.S. government, the State Department could lead the charge on this work. This agreement would include countries committing to a full audit of national and subnational curricula (given that curriculum formation may be a subnational responsibility) in elementary and secondary education, to removing hate material and teaching tolerance, to teaching critical thinking, to teaching how to counter extremist propaganda, and to teaching how to determine the credibility of information seen or received through both mainstream and social media. History, social studies, and civics curricula should be a central focus, but intolerance and propaganda can seep in across subjects, including in language curricula. The education component of this should extend beyond formal education to adult education, potentially through the media, with education campaigns on television and in print. A television ad campaign could, for instance, teach citizens what “fake news” looks like and how to recognize it. The externalities would extend beyond countering extremism to being able to recognize and counter all manner of disinformation campaigns. The U.N. Security Council has put forward a number of resolutions over the past decade to deal with extremism and terrorism, including on CVE (incorporating some of the same bottom-up community-led initiatives the Obama administration had proposed in its CVE strategy), but resolutions limit themselves to “encouraging” or “urging” member states to take action. My proposed approach of an agreement within a U.N. framework would, by definition, go further and would require signatories to commit to taking action. There would be another element to this agreement, which would require investment in country-level research to understand how each country’s particular education system might foster extremism and might be improved, so that tailored solutions can be employed. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) could also potentially develop a proposed curriculum framework to be adopted by countries. Much as in the Paris agreement, one component would ensure transparency, implementation, and compliance from the signatories. A less ambitious, less visible version, but perhaps more easily doable, would be to subsume this under the Sustainable Development Goal on education. SDG 4 on quality education has a specific component, 4.7, which already begins to address this: “By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.” However, the disadvantage of a less visible approach is that it may be less likely to be implemented. In addition, to counter regional and local terrorist groups — and to do so in a cost-effective, non-military manner as much as possible, in keeping with reducing the budget allocated to international counterterrorism efforts — I propose a second policy tool. U.S.-led action at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — a multilateral body which can place a country on a “grey list” for enhanced monitoring for terrorist financing, that in turn hinders foreign investment into the country — has been effective in recent years in encouraging Pakistan to act against militant groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (the FATF listing has worked better to induce Pakistan to take action than using U.S. aid as a carrot). Beyond America being directly involved in counterterrorism (at great cost), this is an effective tool that places the onus and the cost on the countries themselves to take action against militant groups. It can be used far more widely to target local and regional terrorist groups that do not pose a clear threat to America. Wide, systematic FATF targeting across countries would also counter worries from states like Pakistan who argue that their FATF status changes are politically motivated and perceive them to be unfair. America can take the lead on this front, but would have the cover of a multilateral body as the implementer. In our current moment of reckoning with the post-9/11 era in the wake of a global pandemic and the threat of domestic right-wing extremism, it would be a mistake to turn away from the lessons of the last two decades on fighting extremism and terrorism around the world. Instead, we have an opportunity to redefine our paradigm for countering extremism and terrorism, and to do so at once comprehensively and cost-effectively: through leading the way on an international shift in education systems and curricula, and doing so as we reengage with the world in the Biden administration. We should take up the challenge. Related Content May 7, 2020 Eric Rosand, Khalid Koser, Lilla Schumicky-Logan April 28, 2020 September 22, 2020 Many thanks to Michael O’Hanlon and Natan Sachs for thoughtful feedback and suggestions, to Jeff Feltman for a helpful discussion, and to Ted Reinert for excellent editing. Foreign Policy Center for Middle East Policy Online Only 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm EDT Lydia Wilbard August 29, 2024 Linda Peek Schacht  The Long-term Benefits of Education as a Crime-prevention Measure by NDFAuthors
Education, always has been, and always will be, the most effective way to combat adversity. Rather than harshening laws to prevent people from making mistakes, we can encourage them to become productive members of society by providing them with the education and training. Increasing crime and murder rates are one of the biggest problems in today’s world, and as a result, more and more money and resources are being fuelled into correction facilities and measures dealing with crimes and the consequences of such things. In contrast, funding towards education, particularly early childhood education and development is deteriorating at an alarmingly rapid rate. Budget cuts target educational facilities before any other sectors, as the prevalent thought in society is that safety and protection are the top priority. Many fail to realize that by putting more funding and resources into early childhood education programs, and education programs in general, we will be both reducing future crime rates and saving money, contributing to society as a whole. Quality Education Reduces CrimeStudies have been done to determine whether education really does make children less prone to commit crimes as they get older. One study focused on 3 and 4-year-old children that were enrolled in an education program for 15 years. It found that children who didn’t participate in the preschool program, who therefore missed out on some important opportunity for early childhood development, were 70% more likely to be arrested for a crime by the age of 18. This shows that early childhood education and development is integral in ensuring the mental health and development of children, and helping prevent crime at later ages. Early childhood education also plays an integral role in the mental health development of children. During the first three years of a child’s life, they develop their cognitive and behavioural traits, many of which are the threshold for their future personality traits. In particular, children learn skills regarding how to tackle problems and confrontations, and in these periods of a child’s life, exposure to a safe learning environment is integral in helping them develop safe and un-violent methods of confrontation. For instance, if a child is having struggles cooperating and is acting out, if they are participating in early childhood education programs, they would have access to teachers and instructors that would help the child channel their frustrations and negative energy into productive actions that would simultaneously teach them how to control their anger and discomfort.  Copyright: Oksana Kuzmina Such behavioural and characteristic traits are integral in a child’s mental development, and will act as the threshold for their mental development as they age. If a child grows up in an abusive and violent environment, and does not have access to any educational support, their chances of becoming juvenile delinquents and potential criminals are much higher. Addressing Crime ProblemsIn our society, most of the time, when issues of crime prevention are brought up, the first line of defense and retaliation is a reactive measure to a crime or a series of crimes. For instance, when looking at the increasing numbers of substance abuse in many communities, the first method of response is often finding a way to harshen punishments and penalties to discourage substance abuse. If not finding ways to stricken punishments, the next focus goes towards finding ways to restrict access to such substances, another preventative measure that focuses on preventing the action, not the motivation behind the action.  Copyright: SpeedKingz By putting more focus on education and early childhood development measures, children will hopefully be less interested and prone to committing crimes as they get older. A focus on education helps provide a more permanent solution to this problem, as the mentality of the potential perpetrator of such crimes has completely shifted due to their education and upbringing. The Importance of Role-ModelsAnother argument is that cause for crime stems from a lack of a moral compass , which is often passed on from parents onto children at their early ages. From this ideology, it is equally integral for parents to play a vibrant and active role in their children’s lives. But what about parents who have to work for a living and cannot dedicate as much time to taking care of their children? This is where preschool and daycare programs come into play. Having well equipped programs and teachers who can teach children the importance of morality By providing strong educational programs from the early childhood development years (preschool to elementary), all the way to grade 12, we would be encouraging children to complete their education and be more prepared for the workforce .  Copyright: VGstockstudio Rather than harshening laws to prevent people from making mistakes, we can encourage them to become productive members of society by providing them with the education and training necessary to partake in the world. Poverty is a leading factor in causing people to commit crimes, another reason why education can help crime prevention. Education, always has been, and always will be, the most effective way to combat adversity. It battles ignorance and helps create a more open-minded and respectful society. By fuelling more resources and funding into educational programs rather than preventative measures, we can encourage people to focus more on educating themselves and becoming productive and contributing members of society rather than delinquents. 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COMMENTS
education. Depending on the exact specification used, it explains be-tween 51% and 84% of the crime reduction among 19-24-year-olds.24 Tables 8 and 9 push the dynamic incapacitation analysis further to look at the different age reforms and to consider possible spillovers across crime types.
Why Does Education Reduce Crime? Abstract: We provide a unifying empirical framework to study why crime reductions occurred due to a sequence of state-level dropout age reforms enacted between 1980 and 2010 in the United States. Because the reforms changed the shape of crime-age profiles, they generate both a short-term incapacitation effect ...
Abstract. We provide a unifying empirical framework to study why crime reductions occurred due to a sequence of state-level dropout age reforms enacted between 1980 and 2010 in the United States. Because the reforms changed the shape of crime-age profiles, they generate both a short-term incapacitation effect and a more sustained crime-reducing ...
Education, Economics, Political Science. We provide a unifying empirical framework to study why crime reductions occurred due to a sequence of state-level dropout age reforms enacted between 1980 and 2010 in the United States. Because the reforms changed the shape of crime-age profiles, they generate both a short-term incapacitation effect and ...
Education, on the other end, has been shown to operate as a crime prevention strategy and reduce crime, beyond and over its labor market returns and other social benefits (Åslund et al., 2018, Campaniello et al., 2016, Cano-Urbina and Lochner, 2019, Cook and Kang, 2016, Garces et al., 2002, Lochner, 2011, Machin et al., 2011).
Both crime and education reduced forms show a strong and significant effect of the school leaving age increase. In column (1) there is a 4.7% point fall in the conviction rate in the years after the education reform, revealing a statistically significant crime reduced form.
A growing body of evidence I surveyed (Lochner 2011) and discuss here suggests that education can reduce crime, improve health, lower mortality, and increase political participation. The implied social benefits from these impacts can be sizeable. Crime.
Reduced criminality is a beneficial consequence of education policies that raise the school leaving age. There are two possible explanations: First, extra time spent in the education system increases labor market prospects and makes crime relatively less profitable (the longer-term effect). Second, children in the classroom are kept off the ...
Why education reduces crime. Changes to compulsory school leaving laws that force some people to stay in school longer have been shown to boost education and reduce crime. This column uses changes in such laws in the US to show that the driver behind the reduction in crime is not better employment outcomes, but 'dynamic incapacitation'.
The study challenges previous research, which suggests that the reduction in crime rates arising from these CSL laws occurs primarily due to the increased productivity resulting from higher education levels. Instead, the authors find that the main mechanism behind this crime reduction is what they call "dynamic incapacitation". This refers to ...
Economists theoretically predicted in the late 1960s that education, via its positive effect on future earnings, would reduce the probability of criminal participation. Empirical studies have since used various econometric methods to establish that, on average, education has a strong causal crime-reducing effect.
1. Introduction. There is widespread consensus that education has crime-reducing causal effects. The literature emphasizes that human capital can increase the opportunity cost of crime in terms of lost earnings associated with incapacitation (Lochner, 2004, Fella and Gallipoli, 2014).This allows the possibility that government education spending could reduce crime if spending prolongs ...
The findings show that improving education can yield significant social benefits and can be a key policy tool in the drive to reduce crime. Crime reduction is high on the public policy agenda, not least because of the large economic and social benefits it brings.
Fourth, education policies can reduce both property and violent crime. In both the US and Sweden, the estimated effects of educational attainment or school enrollment on property and violent offenses are similar in percentage terms ( Anderson, 2014 , Hjalmarsson et al., 2015 , Lochner and Moretti, 2004 ).
A Publication of the National Center for Education Statistics at IES Crime, Violence, Discipline, and Safety in U.S. Public Schools Findings From the School Survey on Crime and Safety: 2021-22 ... reduce or prevent crime and to provide mental health services to students were limited in a major way, a minor way, or not at all, by selected
Existing theories relate higher education to lower crime rates, yet we have limited evidence on the crime-reducing effect of education in developing countries. We contribute to this literature by examining the effect of education on homicide in Mexico, where homicide rates decreased by nearly 55 percent from 1992 to 2007, before the surge of ...
Abstract. Prior research shows reduced criminality to be a beneficial consequence of education policies that raise the school leaving age. This paper studies how crime reductions occurred in a sequence of state-level dropout age reforms enacted between 1980 and 2010 in the United States. These reforms changed the shape of crime-age profiles ...
Combined earnings among all formerly incarcerated people would increase by $45.3 million during the first year of release alone; and. Reduce recidivism rates among participating students, saving states a combined $365.8 million in decreased prison costs per year. Postsecondary education in prison as a strategy to reduce recidivism is not a new ...
First, education policies can reduce property crime and violent crime. In the United States, the estimated effects of educational attainment or school enrollment on property and violent offenses appear to be quite similar in percentage terms (Lochner and Moretti (2004) ...
the probability of arrest or incarceration conditional on crime. We estimate that the social savings from crime reduction associated with high school graduation (for men) is about 14-26 percent of the private return.(JEL I2, K42) Is it possible to reduce crime rates by raising the education of potential criminals? If so,
I recommend reform of national education policies to counter extremism, but recognize that targeting specific countries, or using bilateral approaches, is a non-starter. Therefore, I propose a U.S ...
Poverty is a leading factor in causing people to commit crimes, another reason why education can help crime prevention. Education, always has been, and always will be, the most effective way to combat adversity. It battles ignorance and helps create a more open-minded and respectful society. By fuelling more resources and funding into ...
The killings of four University of Idaho students in an off-campus home in Moscow in November 2022 were as brutal as they were perplexing. The group of friends had gone out in the college town and ...