Friday, January 25, 2013

Childhood Depression Does Not Lead To Violent Crimes

Posted by Milton Recht:

From "Youth Depression and Future Criminal Behavior" by D. Mark Anderson, Montana State University - Bozeman, and Erdal Tekin, Georgia State University, December 2012, NBER Working Paper No. w18656:
Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we examine the effect of depression during adolescence on the probability of engaging in a number of criminal behaviors later in life.
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We find little evidence that adolescent depression predicts the likelihood of engaging in violent crime or the selling of illicit drugs. However, our empirical estimates show that adolescents who suffer from depression face an increased probability of engaging in property crime. Our estimates imply that the lower-bound economic cost of property crime associated with adolescent depression is about 219 million dollars annually.

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