Youth unemployment and youth crime : a preliminary analysis / P.N. Junankar.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the possible links between youth unemployment and youth crime. The paper discusses some of the problems involved in the concept and measurement of crime which are due to changes in laws, social mores. and changes in policing and judicial practices. In particular we distinguish between potential, actual, and recorded crime and then discuss the various lags between these stages and the stage where individuals are brought to court and sentenced. We emphasise the problem of variable lags between these different stages. We then go on to discuss economic (rational choice) theories and socio-criminological theories. We then provide some preliminary time series regression results for Britain which suggest a positive association (controlling for a time trend) between youth unemployment and youth crime. We conclude that a more complex model is required to tackle this question but our preliminary results provide some orima facie evidence for a link between youth unemployment and youth crime. Show more