TY - JOUR
T1 - Crime, broken families, and punishment
AU - Bezin, Emeline
AU - Verdier, Thierry A
AU - Zenou, Yves
N1 - Funding Information:
* Bezin: Paris School of Economics and IRES, UCLouvain (email: [email protected]); Verdier: Paris School of Economics and Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, PUC-Rio, and CEPR (email: [email protected]); Zenou: Monash University and CEPR (email: [email protected]). Leslie Marx was coeditor for this article. We thank three anonymous referees for helpful comments. This research was undertaken under the project TECTACOM. The financial support from the European Research Council (ERC) grant number 324004 is gratefully acknowledged. †Go to https://doi.org/10.1257/mic.20200379 to visit the article page for additional materials and author disclosure statement(s) or to comment in the online discussion forum.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2022/11
Y1 - 2022/11
N2 - We develop a two-period overlapping generations model in which both the family structure and the decision to commit crime are endogenous and the dynamics of moral norms of good conduct is transmitted intergenerationally by families and peers. By “destroying” biparental families and putting fathers in prison, we show that more intense crime repression can backfire because it increases the possibility that criminals’ sons become criminals themselves. Our model also explains the emergence and persistence of urban ghettos characterized by a large proportion of broken families, high crime rates, and high levels of peer socialization, which reinforce criminal activities.
AB - We develop a two-period overlapping generations model in which both the family structure and the decision to commit crime are endogenous and the dynamics of moral norms of good conduct is transmitted intergenerationally by families and peers. By “destroying” biparental families and putting fathers in prison, we show that more intense crime repression can backfire because it increases the possibility that criminals’ sons become criminals themselves. Our model also explains the emergence and persistence of urban ghettos characterized by a large proportion of broken families, high crime rates, and high levels of peer socialization, which reinforce criminal activities.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85163393368&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1257/mic.20200379
DO - 10.1257/mic.20200379
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85163393368
SN - 1945-7669
VL - 14
SP - 723
EP - 760
JO - American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
JF - American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
IS - 4
ER -