Compulsory schooling laws and school crime

Extensive literature demonstrates that compulsory schooling laws improve educational attainment, well-being, civic involvement, and labour market outcomes. However, at-risk youth incapacitated to schools may impact the learning environment and school safety. The purpose of this article is to study whether raising the minimum dropout age (MDA) requirement above 16 increases crime committed within US public high schools. A difference-in-difference estimation exploits changes in state-level MDA laws over time and indicates that schools in states that raise their MDA requirement to 18 incur more overall crime relative to schools in states that do not, while no effect on overall crime is identified when the MDA requirement is raised to 17. Furthermore, these effects persist for 4 years after passage and more intensely in metropolitan areas. Coupling this research with existing literature suggests that when the MDA requirement is raised to 18, only a small portion of the observed reduction in juvenile crime is displaced to schools. Analysis by category of crime reveals schools incur more physical attacks, no change in illegal drug and property crimes, and fewer violent crimes in states that raise their MDA requirement to 18, while illegal drug crimes increase in states that raise their MDA requirement to 17.