Child protection and adult crime
Subtitle: using investigator assignment to estimate causal effects of foster care
By: Joseph J. Doyle, Jr..
Contributors: National Bureau of Economic Research
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 13291; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 13291.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] :
Description: "Nearly 20% of young prison inmates spent part of their youth in foster care - the placement of abused or neglected children with substitute families.  Little is known whether foster care placement reduces or increases the likelihood of criminal behavior.  This paper uses the placement frequency of child protection investigators as an instrument to identify causal effects of foster care placement on adult arrest, conviction, and imprisonment rates.  A unique dataset that links child abuse investigation data to criminal justice data in Illinois allows a comparison of adult crime outcomes across individuals who were investigated for abuse or neglect as children.  Families are effectively randomized to child protection investigators through a rotational assignment process, and child characteristics are similar across investigators.  Nevertheless, investigator placement frequencies are predictive of subsequent foster care placement, and the results suggest that school-aged children who are on the margin of placement have lower adult arrest rates when they remain at home"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 8/21/2007.

Includes bibliographical references.

Also available in print.

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Mode of access: World Wide Web.