科学研究

Anna Piil Damm is Associate Professor at the Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus University. She is a core member of TrygFonden’s Centre for Child Research at Aarhus University and a research fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM) and the Rockwool Foundation Research Unit (Rockwool Fondens Forskningsenhed).

 

Her main research interests are in population economics (migration, economics of the family) and labour economics (wages, employment, education, crime). Her current research questions include attitudes towards immigrants and social determinants of successful child outcomes, including the size and nature of peer effects in the neighbourhood, classroom and prisons and the effects of youth mentoring programs for socially disadvantaged children.

 

She joined the IZA research network in August 2014.

We investigate the effects of other inmates’ criminal background on crime-specific recidivism for young adults serving time in prison for the first time using Danish register data. First, we provide descriptive evidence that young first-time incarcerated adults tend to recidivate with crimes in crime category h in which they have prior experience. Therefore, our empirical model for estimating the effects of exposure to inmates with previous conviction of type h crime (the peer effect) on recidivism with crime category h 12, 24 and 36 months after release allows the peer effect to vary w.r.t. whether the individual has a previous conviction within crime category h. We refer to a positive effect on exposure to inmates with past experience with crime category h on recidivism within crime category h i) conditional on having past experience with type h crime as a reinforcing peer effect and ii) conditional on having no past experience with type h crime as an introductory peer effect. Relying only on within-prison-within-crime-type-h variation, for h equal to drug-related crimes, threats, theft, burglary and fencing as well as vandalism and arson, we find evidence of a reinforcing peer effect on recidivism/number of convictions of type h crime after release. By contrast, for violence and sexual offenses, robbery and offenses against the Weapons Act we find no evidence of a reinforcing peer effect on recidivism/number of convictions of type h crime after release. Moreover, we find no evidence of introductory peer effects. Therefore, policies that assign young first-time incarcerated offenders with past experience with drug-related crimes, threats, theft, burglary and fencing or vandalism and arson, to prisons with high shares of criminals who are experienced criminals in the same field as individual i may lead to perverse effects on recidivism with drug-related crimes, threats, theft, burglary and fencing or vandalism and arson.

 

Note: The “WISE-IZA” seminar series is transmitted from IZA in Bonn using e-conference technology.