A Choice Approach to Education and Crime
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Parker, Brandy Rae
- Graduate Program:
- Sociology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- November 01, 2024
- Committee Members:
- Eric Plutzer, Outside Unit & Field Member
Jeremy Staff, Major Field Member
Holly Nguyen, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
David Baker, Major Field Member
Scott Yabiku, Professor in Charge/Director of Graduate Studies - Keywords:
- Choice
crime
education - Abstract:
- Educational disparities between justice involved populations and the general public are pronounced and have grown over time. While research documents crime reducing benefits of the high school diploma, literature on the GED and licenses and/or certificates outside of the incarceration context is limited and less supportive of crime reducing benefits. More generally, although scholars have approached the study of the links between educational credentials and offending through a variety of theoretical lenses, the potential mechanisms producing crime reducing benefits remain elusive. In this dissertation, I bridge the gap between two large streams of literature: the education-crime literature and the literature on choice and offending. The education-crime literature can benefit from a choice approach because perceptions of the costs and benefits of crime are related to offending, and changing perceptions of the costs and benefits of crime contribute to desistance during the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. I use the Pathways to Desistance, a sample of justice involved youth followed over a seven year period during the transition from adolescence to young adulthood, and estimate random effects models to assess three overarching research questions: 1) Are educational credentials (the high school diploma, the GED, and license/certificate) associated with the perceived costs (risk of arrest and social) and benefits (personal and social) of crime? 2) Are educational credentials associated with the prevalence of offending (property, drug selling, and violent)? 3) Do perceptions of the costs and benefits of crime attenuate associations between educational credentials and the prevalence of offending? Overall, the findings are mixed and not robust to model specification. In terms of perceptions of the costs and benefits of crime, the high school diploma is associated with greater perceived risk of arrest and social costs of crime, and the GED is associated with greater perceived social costs of crime. In terms of offending, the high school diploma is associated with lower prevalence of property and violent offending, and a license/certificate is associated with lower prevalence of drug selling. The perceived costs and benefits of crime partially attenuate the association between the high school diploma and the prevalence of offending but do not attenuate the association between a license/certificate and the prevalence of drug selling. The GED is not associated with the prevalence of offending. Theoretically, the findings provide little support for a choice approach and indicate that future efforts to unpack the potential crime reducing benefits of obtaining educational credentials should consider a choice approach but also explore other theoretical perspectives. More practically, the findings suggest that justice involved education efforts should direct eligible individuals towards the high school diploma over the GED and licenses and certificates if the goal is to reduce recidivism. I discuss several potential avenues for future research.