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作者

Matthew P. Steinberg;Benjamin Ukert;John M. MacDonald

来源

REGIONAL SCIENCE AND URBAN ECONOMICS,Vol.77,Issue1,P.125-140

语言

英文

关键字

School closings;Urban school reform;Neighborhood crime;Spillovers;I20;I21;I28;R10

作者单位

Assistant Professor of Education Graduate School of Education University of Pennsylvania 3700 Walnut Street, 408 Philadelphia, PA 19104 United States;Postdoctoral Fellow University of Pennsylvania United States;Professor of Criminology and Sociology Department of Criminology University of Pennsylvania 483 McNeil Building, 3718 Locust Walk Philadelphia, PA 19104 United States;Assistant Professor of Education Graduate School of Education University of Pennsylvania 3700 Walnut Street, 408 Philadelphia, PA 19104 United States;Postdoctoral Fellow University of Pennsylvania United States;Professor of Criminology and Sociology Department of Criminology University of Pennsylvania 483 McNeil Building, 3718 Locust Walk Philadelphia, PA 19104 United States

摘要

We leverage the closing of chronically underperforming public schools in Philadelphia to estimate their impact on neighborhood crime. Employing a difference-in-differences strategy comparing monthly crime in blocks where school buildings closed to blocks where schools remained open or were never located, we find significant and substantive declines in crime following school closure. The decline in crime is driven by reductions in violent crime, is concentrated in blocks where high schools closed, during weekday hours when schools would have been in session, and is greatest in the blocks where more students exited following closures. While crime increased in blocks that enrolled a larger share of students displaced due to closures, the displacement of crime was significantly smaller in magnitude than the total crime reduction. These results suggest that closing schools with high rates of student misconduct and low educational performance led to a net reduction in crime in Philadelphia.