Article

Child Protection and Adult Crime: Using Investigator Assignment to Estimate Causal Effects of Foster Care

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Abstract

Nearly 20% of young prison inmates spent part of their youth in foster care - the placement of abused or neglected children with substitute families. Little is known whether foster care placement reduces or increases the likelihood of criminal behavior. This paper uses the placement frequency of child protection investigators as an instrument to identify causal effects of foster care placement on adult arrest, conviction, and imprisonment rates. A unique dataset that links child abuse investigation data to criminal justice data in Illinois allows a comparison of adult crime outcomes across individuals who were investigated for abuse or neglect as children. Families are effectively randomized to child protection investigators through a rotational assignment process, and child characteristics are similar across investigators. Nevertheless, investigator placement frequencies are predictive of subsequent foster care placement, and the results suggest that school-aged children who are on the margin of placement have lower adult arrest rates when they remain at home.

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... The first part considers some of the challenges that have to be overcome when making defensible causal claims using observational data. Interest in causal inference has grown considerably in recent years, especially with reference to observational data (Athey and Imbens 2017;Morgan and Winship 2007;Neil and Winship 2019;Knight and Winship 2013;Gelman and Vehtari 2021;Heckman 2005;Heckman and Pinto 2015;Cunningham 2021;Manski 2007Manski , 2018VanderWeele 2020;Pearl 1995;Little and Rubin 2000;Hernán and Robins 2020;Pearce and Lawlor 2016;Vandenbroucke, Broadbent, and Pearce 2016;Wagner 1999;Pearl 2009;Sampson 2010;Hernán and Robins 2006;Tchetgen and VanderWeele 2012;Pearl 2014).Though their focus is different from the one discussed here, both Doyle (2008Doyle ( , 2013 and Gross and Baron groups (e.g., Hispanics, Native Americans) used in an analysis grows, so too does the level of complexity. The argument made and the methods illustrated generalize to two or more groups, so the complexity adds neither breadth nor depth in this context.What does become apparent, even in the case of two groups, is how our understanding of one group's experiences depends on our understanding of what another, different group experiences. ...
... The first part considers some of the challenges that have to be overcome when making defensible causal claims using observational data. Interest in causal inference has grown considerably in recent years, especially with reference to observational data (Athey and Imbens 2017;Morgan and Winship 2007;Neil and Winship 2019;Knight and Winship 2013;Gelman and Vehtari 2021;Heckman 2005;Heckman and Pinto 2015;Cunningham 2021;Manski 2007Manski , 2018VanderWeele 2020;Pearl 1995;Little and Rubin 2000;Hernán and Robins 2020;Pearce and Lawlor 2016;Vandenbroucke, Broadbent, and Pearce 2016;Wagner 1999;Pearl 2009;Sampson 2010;Hernán and Robins 2006;Tchetgen and VanderWeele 2012;Pearl 2014).Though their focus is different from the one discussed here, both Doyle (2008Doyle ( , 2013 and Gross and Baron groups (e.g., Hispanics, Native Americans) used in an analysis grows, so too does the level of complexity. The argument made and the methods illustrated generalize to two or more groups, so the complexity adds neither breadth nor depth in this context.What does become apparent, even in the case of two groups, is how our understanding of one group's experiences depends on our understanding of what another, different group experiences. ...
... Scholars have also built a robust literature to describe what happens to children once they are placed in foster care (i.e., their outcomes). In this body of work, the outcomes tend to be measured in terms of permanency and well-being (Gypen et al. 2017;Courtney and Hook 2012;Gross and Baron 2020;Doyle 2013;Kennedy, Potter, and Font 2022), but again, the disparities in these outcomes do not address how often placement happens or why. ...
Article
The unwarranted disparities in our foster care system are the result of historical and structural causes. If we hope to correct these disparities by addressing their root causes, we must measure them carefully. In this paper, I ask whether our usual measures of Black child/White child placement differences tell us what we need to know to act on those disparities with greater certainty. I specifically examine the limits of disproportionality as a measure. As a way to observe over and underrepresentation, disproportionality is useful. When the discussion turns to the causes of differential treatment of Black children (or any other children) within the child protection system, there are more useful ways to measure those differences. I demonstrate this point in technical terms, then suggest alternative approaches to the measurement problems. Other approaches, I argue, offer a more vivid picture of the problem social workers are trying to solve.
... Our findings contrast those in Doyle (2008), the only other study to estimate the causal effects of foster care on adult crime in the United States. Doyle (2008) uses the same research design and finds large detrimental effects of foster care placement. ...
... Our findings contrast those in Doyle (2008), the only other study to estimate the causal effects of foster care on adult crime in the United States. Doyle (2008) uses the same research design and finds large detrimental effects of foster care placement. We explore many potential explanations for the divergent results and conclude that the most likely explanation is that foster care in Illinois two decades ago was tremendously different than in Michigan more recently. ...
... First, child welfare policy has changed over time in ways that have likely improved foster care. The federal government has enacted several key policies after the start of the Doyle (2008) sample period focusing on reducing placement length, improving the quality of placement settings, and promoting the wellbeing of children while in foster care. Second, there are large and persistent discrepancies between the foster care systems in the two states. ...
... Bäst kunskap finns om utfallet av långvarig familjehemsvård där före detta placerade barn har studerats som unga vuxna. Så gott som ingen studie har funnit bättre utfall för barn som vuxit upp i familjehem jämfört med utsatta barn som vuxit upp i föräldrahemmet, oavsett val av utfallsmått eller metodologisk ansats i nationella och internationella studier [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Det gäller också studier som använt biologiska syskon som jämförelsegrupp [19,27,28]. ...
... Det gäller också studier som använt biologiska syskon som jämförelsegrupp [19,27,28]. Några studier har till och med funnit högre risk för ogynnsamma utfall bland barn i familjehemsvård [21,24,26], även i jämförelse med syskon som har bott kvar hemma [27,28]. I svenska registerstudier har barn med långvarig familjehemsplacering ungefär samma eller sämre utfall i ung vuxen ålder, oavsett utfallsmått, som jämnåriga barn från de tre procent fattigaste barnfamiljerna i Sverige, det vill säga de som mottar försörjningsstöd under lång tid [29]. ...
... En systematisk litteraturöversikt av longitudinella studier från olika länder fann inga konsistenta bevis på att barns psykiska hälsa förbättrades över tid under pågående vård, även om det fanns variationer mellan olika länder och studier [30,31]. Nordamerikanska studier som försökt att fastställa orsakssammanhang (kausalitet) har vanligen funnit att de långsiktiga effekterna på barns utveckling av vård utom hemmet är neutrala, det vill säga vården verkar ha gjort varken skada eller påtaglig nytta på längre sikt [20,21]. ...
Technical Report
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Barn i utsatta situationer kan under kortare eller längre perioder behöva place- ras i en annan familj. Bland barn som växer upp i familjehem är det vanligare med psykisk och fysisk ohälsa. Det är därför viktigt att veta om stödinsatser till barn och familjehemsföräldrar kan hjälpa barnen. Slutsatser - Insatser till familjehemsplacerade barn och familjehemsföräldrar kan för- bättra barnens psykiska och fysiska hälsa, sociala situation, livskvalitet samt placeringars stabilitet. På grund av olikheter mellan insatserna och studier- nas vetenskapliga utformning går det inte att avgöra vilka insatser eller vilka delar av insatserna som är verksamma. - För följande tre specifika insatser finns något säkrare kunskap om effekter: • Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up är en utbildning för familjehemsföräldrar som kan minska vissa psykiska symtom hos barnen • Föräldradelen av programmet Incredible Years kan minska barns beteendeproblem och öka familjehemsföräldrars förmåga att klara föräldrarollen • Take Charge är en specialpedagogisk insats till ungdomar som kan förbättra deras självbestämmande, utbildningsgång och möjligheter till arbete. - Ingen av de insatser som används i Sverige har utvärderats i en studie. I Sverige läggs tonvikten på att utreda familjers lämplighet och att utbilda dem. Att erbjuda stödinsatser till barn eller familjehemsföräldrar under barnens placering är mindre vanligt. Personer som har växt upp i familje- hem, deras föräldrar och familjehemsföräldrar efterlyser stöd till barn och familjehem under placeringen. - Det behövs forskning som undersöker effekten av insatser inom familje- hemsvård. Samtliga insatser som identifierades i litteraturöversikten bör rimligtvis kunna användas i Sverige men deras effekter behöver följas upp och utvärderas i en svensk kontext. De insatser som redan förekommer i Sverige behöver också utvärderas och undersökas vetenskapligt. Det behövs även studier som belyser kostnadseffektivitet i insatser för svenska förhållanden. Bakgrund och syfte Mellan 3 och 4 procent av alla barn i Sverige placeras någon gång i ett familje- hem eller på en institution. Under sitt liv har dessa barn en förhöjd risk för suicid, psykisk och fysisk ohälsa, missbruk, kriminalitet och behov av långvarigt försörjningsstöd. Syftet med denna rapport är att granska och sammanställa det vetenskapliga underlaget för stödinsatser till barn i familjehem och till familje- hemsföräldrar för att minska dessa risker. Metod Den systematiska utvärderingen genomfördes i enlighet med SBU:s metodik. Studierna skulle behandla insatser som utvärderats i kontrollerade studier med hög eller medelhög studiekvalitet. Studierna skulle vara publicerade mellan åren 1990 och 2017 och inkludera minst 40 personer. Uppföljningstiden skulle vara minst tre månader för barn två år eller äldre, och minst en månad för barn yngre än två år. Studier uteslöts om jämförelsegruppen utgjordes av grupp- boende eller om den till stor del bestod av barn som var placerade i släkting- hem. Den systematiska utvärderingen inkluderar även ekonomiska aspekter, en inventering av vilka insatser som används i Sverige, erfarenheter från brukar- organisationer samt en etisk analys. Resultat Effekter av insatser Sammanlagt granskades 5 298 artikelsammanfattningar. Relevans- och kvali- tetsgranskningen identifierade 23 studier av 18 insatser som motsvarade våra kriterier. Sammantaget visar de 23 studierna att det går att påverka familje- hemsplacerade barns psykiska och fysiska hälsa, sociala situation, livskvalitet samt placeringars stabilitet. På grund av olikheter mellan insatserna och studier- nas vetenskapliga utformning ger resultaten inte entydiga svar på vilka insatser eller vilka delar av insatserna som är verksamma. För tre av insatserna finns ett begränsat vetenskapligt stöd för att de har effekt: Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up kan förbättra barns psykiska hälsa (t.ex. minskad stress); Take Charge kan förbättra barns förmåga till självbestäm- mande samt sociala situation (t.ex. fullföljd utbildning) och Incredible Years kan öka familjehemsföräldrars förmåga att klara föräldrarollen och minska barnens beteendeproblem. Effekterna av de övriga 15 insatserna går inte att bedöma eftersom de endast utvärderats i en studie vardera. Det saknas helt studier som belyser barns tandhälsa och förebyggande av ton- årsgraviditeter. Det saknas också studier av eventuella skadliga eller oönskade effekter av insatserna. Praxisundersökning En enkät skickades ut till ett slumpvis urval kommuner (svar från 80 av 106) och samtliga enskilda företag som arbetar på kommuners uppdrag (svar från 34 av 38). Enkäten identifierade 30 insatser. Ingen av insatserna återfinns i littera- turöversikten. Det framkom bland annat att insatserna fokuserar på bedömning av lämplighet av familjehemsföräldrar och på allmän utbildning av dem före barnen placeras. Det var mindre vanligt med stöd till barn eller familjehems- föräldrar under placeringen. Att döma av de insatser som används saknas kon- sensus om vilka insatser som uppfattas som effektiva. Kostnadseffektivitet Totalt granskades 2 120 artikelsammanfattningar. Två relevanta artiklar hittades men ingen uppfyllde SBU:s krav på kvalitet i den ekonomiska utvärderingen. Studiernas resultat går inte att överföra till svenska förhållanden. Brukar- och anhörigperspektiv Fyra organisationer som företräder barn med erfarenhet av familjehemsvård, deras föräldrar samt familjehemsföräldrar besvarade enkäter eller intervjuades. De efterlyser mer stöd utöver själva placeringen. Dessutom önskar familjehems- föräldrar bättre kunskap om barnets behov vid placeringen och ursprungsför- äldrarna efterlyser stöd för att få vara delaktiga i sina barns liv. Etiska aspekter När samhället övertar ansvaret för barns vårdnad så finns en särskild skyldighet att tillgodose barnens bästa. Att samhället inte alltid tagit sitt ansvar visar bland annat den så kallade Vanvårdsutredningen (SOU 2011:61). Ett problem är bristen på vetenskaplig kunskap om insatsers för- och nackdelar vilket äventyrar barns rättigheter. Ett annat problem är bristande dokumentation och uppfölj- ning av de insatser som används. Diskussion Vi bedömer att insatserna från litteraturöversikten kan användas i svensk familjehemsvård med överförbara resultat för barnen. Om beslut fattas att införa nya insatser bör man vara uppmärksam på att många kommuner är små med få placerade barn, vilket kan skapa problem med att upprätthålla tillräcklig kompetens. De som arbetar i familjehemsvården är många gånger ovana vid den systematik som insatserna kräver. Även med ökad tillgång på vetenskaplig kunskap om insatsers effekter behövs rutiner för att på ett ordnat sätt införa, vidmakthålla och utmönstra insatser inom familjehemsvården. Detta kan ske genom lokal uppföljning där både positiva och negativa effekter följs upp syste- matiskt och dokumenteras. I förlängningen ger det möjlighet till uppbyggnad av kvalitetsregister. Framtida forskning bör inriktas på att undersöka nyttan av de insatser som används idag eller som kan komma att införas.
... Bäst kunskap finns om utfallet av långvarig familjehemsvård där före detta placerade barn har studerats som unga vuxna. Så gott som ingen studie har funnit bättre utfall för barn som vuxit upp i familjehem jämfört med utsatta barn som vuxit upp i föräldrahemmet, oavsett val av utfallsmått eller metodologisk ansats i nationella och internationella studier [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Det gäller också studier som använt biologiska syskon som jämförelsegrupp [19,27,28]. ...
... Det gäller också studier som använt biologiska syskon som jämförelsegrupp [19,27,28]. Några studier har till och med funnit högre risk för ogynnsamma utfall bland barn i familjehemsvård [21,24,26], även i jämförelse med syskon som har bott kvar hemma [27,28]. I svenska registerstudier har barn med långvarig familjehemsplacering ungefär samma eller sämre utfall i ung vuxen ålder, oavsett utfallsmått, som jämnåriga barn från de tre procent fattigaste barnfamiljerna i Sverige, det vill säga de som mottar försörjningsstöd under lång tid [29]. ...
... En systematisk litteraturöversikt av longitudinella studier från olika länder fann inga konsistenta bevis på att barns psykiska hälsa förbättrades över tid under pågående vård, även om det fanns variationer mellan olika länder och studier [30,31]. Nordamerikanska studier som försökt att fastställa orsakssammanhang (kausalitet) har vanligen funnit att de långsiktiga effekterna på barns utveckling av vård utom hemmet är neutrala, det vill säga vården verkar ha gjort varken skada eller påtaglig nytta på längre sikt [20,21]. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
Familjehemsvård aktualiserar komplexa etiska frågor som bottnar i barns särskilda sårbarhet, samhällets särskilda ansvar för barn som far illa, komplicerade maktstrukturer som styr familjehemsvården, kvaliteten på kunskapsunderlag om specifika insatser, samt organisationen som ansvarar för familjehemsvården. Det är ett etiskt problem att inga av de insatser som används i Sverige är utvärderade för barn i familjehem. Därmed är det oklart om samhällets familjehemsvård gynnar barnen eller lever upp till grundläggande etiska krav på ansvarstagande från samhällets sida. Detta kan också innebära att verksamheten är lagstridig.
... Currently, over 400,000 children are housed in foster care, including group and private homes of relatives and unrelated foster care providers. Beyond the direct costs of supporting foster care (Barth et al., 2006) there are various long-term adverse consequences compared to placement by adoption in private households. 1 Doyle (2007aDoyle ( , 2008 identifies adverse causal effects of foster care placement on rates of juvenile delinquency, teen pregnancy, unemployment, and adult crime. In fact, 70 percent of California's prison population spent part of their youth in foster care (Baccara et al., 2012). ...
... The adverse effects of raising children in foster care, as opposed to adoptive families, are well-documented. Although the number of children in the U.S. foster care system is relatively small (approximately 400,000), the societal costs of long-term foster care placements are disproportionately high including increased rates of delinquency, teen pregnancy, drug use, sexually transmitted diseases, unemployment, adult crime, and incarceration (Doyle, 2007a(Doyle, , 2008Courtney et al., 2004). Policies that promote adoption from foster care could mitigate some of these negative outcomes. ...
Preprint
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The likelihood that a child in U.S. foster care is adopted depends upon alternatives available to parents. We analyzed a child-level panel from 1998 to 2004, when international adoptions peaked in the US, to estimate the effect of international adoptions and assisted reproductive technologies (ART) on adoption probabilities for foster children, focusing on infants and toddlers. Using granular data on the adopted children's country of origin and placement state, we identify the impact of international adoptions with a shift-share instrument. We find that international adoptions have significant and robust negative effects on foster adoptions, while the estimated effects of ART births are smaller and sensitive to model specification. JEL Classifications: I38, J13, J18
... fects of instrumented judge decisions on a multitude of other noncrime outcomes (Doyle 2007(Doyle , 2008Belloni et al. 2012;Maestas, Mullen, and Strand 2013;Dahl, Kostøl, and Mogstad 2014;French and Song 2014;Autor, Kostøl, and Mogstad 2015;Dobbie and Song 2015). ...
... fects of instrumented judge decisions on a multitude of other noncrime outcomes (Doyle 2007(Doyle , 2008Belloni et al. 2012;Maestas, Mullen, and Strand 2013;Dahl, Kostøl, and Mogstad 2014;French and Song 2014;Autor, Kostøl, and Mogstad 2015;Dobbie and Song 2015). ...
Article
The number of workplace sex discrimination charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission approaches 25,000 annually. Do the subsequent judicial proceedings suffer from a discriminatory gender bias? Exploiting random assignment of federal district court judges to civil cases, I find that female plaintiffs filing workplace sex discrimination claims are substantially more likely to settle and win compensation whenever a female judge is assigned to the case. Additionally, female judges are 15 percentage points less likely than male judges to grant motions filed by defendants, which suggests that final negotiations are shaped by the emergence of the bias.
... In the same vein, studies of out-of-home placements have almost unilaterally (and for good reason) focused on how the intervention affects children (e.g. Berger et al., 2009;Doyle, 2007Doyle, , 2008. In this article, we have instead studied how an out-of-home placement affects fathers' labor market behavior-that is, what happens to men's welfare dependency propensity when they no longer are caretakers of their children. ...
... Whereas a growing literature analyzes the effect of out-of-home care experiences on children's life outcome (e.g. Berger et al., 2009;Doyle, 2007Doyle, , 2008Fallesen, 2013;Frederiksen, 2012;Lindquist & Santavirta, 2014;Warburton, Warburton, Sweetman, & Hertzman, 2014), only a few studies examine the impact on parents (Ainsworth & Hansen, 2011;Buchbinder & Bareqet-Moshe, 2011;Schofield et al., 2011) and all of these focus solely on psychological impacts. Knowledge of whether fathers experience a drop in labor market participation when their children enter out-ofhome care can help outline the full social and economic consequences and costs of out-of-home placements. ...
Article
In this article, we test how out-of-home placement affects men's labor market attachment, and in so doing we provide a novel parallel to existing research on how fatherhood affects men, which focuses almost exclusively on a child's arrival. Using population panel data from Denmark that include all first time fathers whose children were placed in out-of-home care from 1995 to 2005, we find that having a child placed in care is associated with up to a 4 percentage point increase in welfare dependency. Having a child placed in out-of-home care appear to aggravate conditions that likely necessitated the out-of-home placement to begin with, thereby likely necessitating longer duration of out-of-home placements. Thus, out-of-home placements have substantial secondary costs for parents and society.
... We exploit variation from the child's random allocation to caseworkers with different propensities of using kinship care as a placement option. Doyle (2007) was the first to suggest and use this source of exogenous variation in a study on child welfare in Chicago, and Doyle (2008) and Warburton, Warburton, Sweetman, and Hertzman (2014) reused it, and we observe the same random allocation of children to caseworkers in Denmark. ...
... Doyle (2007) was the first to suggest the use of this instrument for exogenous variation in placement probabilities, and our identification strategy is inspired by his study. As is the case in parts of the US system (Doyle, 2007(Doyle, , 2008, also Danish caseworkers are randomly assigned to cases -or children. Although most municipalities assign caseworkers based on the child's month of birth (i.e., one caseworker handles all children born in January, another handles all children born in February, etc.), some of them assign caseworkers based on the child's place of residence. ...
Article
Compared with other types of out-of-home care, kinship care is cheap, and offers the child a more familiar environment. However, little is known about the causal effect of kinship care on important outcomes. This study is the first to estimate causal effects of kinship care on placement stability, using full-sample administrative data (N=13,157) and instrumental variables methods. Results show that, in a sample of children of age 0-17 years, kinship care is as stable as other types of care, and only when the kin caregiver is particularly empathic and dutiful does this type of care prove more stable. Thus, in terms of stability, most children do not benefit additionally from being placed with kin. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
... For each defendant i, we construct a measure of stringency of the initial courtroom his cases was assigned and use it as an instrument for being convicted. Following previous literature [Doyle Jr (2008); Di Tella and Schargrodsky ( ...
Preprint
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This paper examines the impact of a criminal conviction on labor market outcomes and recidivism in Brazil, using an instrumental variable approach. Our findings show that a criminal conviction significantly reduces employment by 22 percent, and earnings by 25 percent within three years after the case starts. We also find strong evidence that a criminal conviction increases following criminal activity by 13 percentage points. Our heterogeneity analysis shows that these adverse effects are concentrated among individuals charged with low-severity crimes. These results suggest that social stigma might play a significant role in the negative consequences of criminal records on labor market prospects. Our study provides the first causal evidence of the direct effects of a criminal conviction on labor and recidivism outcomes in a non-developed country context.
... Foster care may or may not improve child outcomes. SeeDoyle (2007Doyle ( , 2008 andGross and Baron (2022).Marijuana legalization and drug abuse as a cause for entry into foster care Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved. ...
Article
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In recent years, many states have legalized marijuana for medical use, recreational use, or both. At the same time, parental drug abuse is now the second most frequent reason for a child’s placement into the foster care system. We investigate the causal link between these two facts. Do states that legalize marijuana use experience an increase in foster care entries related to drug abuse? We utilize multiple difference-in-difference approaches to exploit the state level variation in recreational and medical marijuana laws. Our findings suggest that when states permitted recreational marijuana use, there was no corresponding change in the number of foster care entries related to drug abuse, relative to control states. For the legalization of medical marijuana, we find a roughly 20 percent decrease in the number of cases associated with parental drug abuse in the second year after legalization, followed by a roughly 30 percent decrease in the third and fourth years. We isolate this effect as coming from states with relatively strict tetrahydrocannabinol limits. While we find fewer entries related to parental drug abuse, there is no convincing evidence that total removals decreased.
... The judges' "punishment propensities" are then used as a continuous treatment variable (or instrument). The punishment propensities must be estimated from the data; a common approach in the literature is to use the leave-one-out (henceforth LOO) mean sentence length of each judge (Doyle (2007), Doyle (2008), Aizer and Doyle (2015), Bhuller et al. (2016), Dobbie, Goldin and Yang (2016), Stevenson (2016)). Specifically, suppose defendant i is assigned to judge calendar j (i), where j (i) is a mapping of defendants to judge calendars, j (i) : {1, . . . ...
... Others have argued that it is not the complex needs of this vulnerable group that leads them to the criminal justice system, but rather the failure of community and criminal justice services to provide adequate care, support and protection ( Baldry et al., 2015;Ellem & Richards, 2018;Gerard et al., 2019McFarlane, 2015. It has been suggested by some researchers that the removal of a child from home and placement in OOHC may be responsible for both trauma and disruption to primary attachments, which can then lead to later criminal behaviour (DeGue & Spatz Widom, 2009;Doyle, 2008). New placements impact a child's ability to form attachments, and there is evidence supporting a strong association between insecure attachments and all types of criminality (Ogilvie, Newman, Todd, & Peck, 2014). ...
Article
Full-text available
Children with cognitive impairment in out-of-home care (OOHC) are significantly over-represented in the criminal justice system. Little attention has been given to the connection between those with cognitive impairment who also have a care background and how these combined factors are linked to their criminal behaviour. A qualitative study utilising semi-structured interviews with 11 senior strategic officers and service providers to this cohort was conducted with the aim of investigating the views of these professionals and gaining insight into factors contributing to the criminalisation of children with cognitive impairment in OOHC. Five themes were identified using thematic analysis, suggesting that the primary areas of concern are: (a) increased vulnerability, (b) lack of belonging and security, (c) challenges with identification, (d) steering to the criminal justice system and (e) lack of support. These findings have important implications for both policy and practice, which are discussed in full.
... This "less' needy subgroup may consist of youth from families that lean towards using the CPS as a safety net rather than as acute and life-altering aid, and their presence in the system may drive down the mean program effect, thereby masking positive effects among more needy groups. Existing studies effects of foster care such as Doyle (2007;2008) and Warburton et al. (2014) support the claim that not all groups benefit from foster care, and hereby that we need to think very carefully about who gets what program. ...
Article
Full-text available
Most countries provide aftercare for foster care alumni either through specific targeted programs or by making foster care or related services available to the youth after they have aged out of foster care. Yet we have limited evidence of the effects of this type of care, especially from non-US contexts. My study tests whether an expansion of the Danish aftercare scheme in 2001 affects later outcomes of foster care alumni. This expansion raised the age limit for eligibility for aftercare from 20 years to 22 years, and created an increased focus on availability of this type of support. Using Danish administrative data and a difference-in-difference setup, I find that the expansion increased unemployment, but only in the short run, and reduced educational activities overall. It did, however improve wage outcomes, but only for those cohorts immediately impacted by the reform, and only in the medium run.
... 17 In fact, nearly 20% of prisoners under the age of 30 and 25% of repeat offenders report that part of their youth was spent in foster care. 18 The nature of this relationship, however, is complex and multifaceted. 19 The effects of child maltreatment and foster care appear to be heterogeneous for a variety of reasons. ...
Article
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Multiple foster placements warrant treatment as a mitigating circumstance in criminal proceedings. The case for considering such placements is compelling, particularly if the placements took place during a contracted period of time and during pre-adolescence or adolescence.
... The studies that have been conducted into juvenile offending have seldom sought to understand why children offend while in care (Shaw, 2012) or to examine the criminogenic processes that propel them into the justice system at such disproportionate rates. While some studies have reported on OOHC representation rates as one of a range of outcome measures, few have adopted methodologies that permitted or encouraged follow-up, particularly in relation to persistent, chronic or adult onset offending (DeGue & Widom, 2009;Doyle, 2007Doyle, , 2008. Even in jurisdictions where the disproportionate representation of the OOHC cohort has been acknowledged -such as England and Wales, Scotland, Canada and the United States -these figures have tended to simply be reproduced year after year, with little academic analysis of the issue (McFarlane, 2008(McFarlane, , 2010(McFarlane, , 2016Sinclair et al., 2004;Taylor, 2006). ...
Article
This article discusses the involvement in the New South Wales criminal justice system of a cohort of children in out-of-home care. The paper reports the findings of a four-year research project that investigated the relationship between the child welfare and justice systems as experienced by a cohort of children in the New South Wales Children’s Court criminal jurisdiction. Analysis of 160 case files identified that children in out-of-home care appeared before the Children’s Court on criminal charges at disproportionate rates compared to children who were not in out-of-home care. The out-of-home care cohort had a different and negative experience of the justice system, entering it at a significantly younger age and being more likely to experience custodial remand, than children who had not been in out-of-home care. While both cohorts shared many of the risk factors common to young offenders appearing before the Children’s Court, the out-of-home care cohort experienced significant additional disadvantage within the care environment (‘care-criminalisation’), such that living arrangements designed to protect them from harm instead created the environment for offending. The paper concludes by arguing that a paucity of research exists regarding the drivers and dynamics of care-criminalisation and that more research is needed to explore the criminogenic impacts of a childhood spent in out-of-home care.
... In addition, in some cases the examiner may communicate with the treating doctor to clarify an aspect of an applicant's file, and these communications may not be part of the applicant's more detailed record. 36 The estimation strategy we employ is similar to that used by Kling (2006) to examine the effect of incarceration on labor supply and earnings, Doyle (2007Doyle ( , 2008 to examine the effects of foster care placement on juvenile delinquency and adult crime, and Perry (2008) to examine the effect of treatment of maternal depression on management of children's asthma. 37 An alternative approach would be to regress allowance decisions on a full set of examiner fixed effects in the first stage. ...
... 5 MTEs are usually only identified for a subset of individuals, such that it is not possible to estimate the ATE, ATT or ATNT nonparametrically. See, for example, Doyle (2007 and2008) and Galasso and Schankerman (2015). Other papers rely on parametric assumptions on the shape of the MTE curve or the underlying behavioral model to improve common support or obtain sufficiently precise estimates (Carneiro et al. (2011), Carneiro et al. (2016, Cornelissen et al. (2018), Basu et al. (2007), and Nybom (2017)). ...
Article
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We analyze the impact of choosing an elite school on high school graduation in an early tracking system in Flanders (Belgium). While elite schools offer only an academic track, most other schools offer multiple tracks. On average, students experience a 3.3 percentage point increase in the likelihood of obtaining a degree. We find that the effects are heterogeneous. On average, students who self-select into elite schools do not experience an effect. However, students who do not choose an elite school would experience positive effects. Our results can be explained by different tracking decisions in both types of schools.
... However, these results should not necessarily be viewed as evidence of harmful effects caused by OHC, as shown in a study by Berzin (2008). Fewif anystudies have shown positive long-term developmental effects of OHC (Doyle, 2007(Doyle, , 2008. Strong links between negative outcomes and poor school performance/low educational attainment are particularly pervasive in the literature (Berlin, Vinnerljung & Hjern, 2011;Vinnerljung, Brännström & Hjern, 2015, Okpych & Courtney, 2014). ...
Article
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Little is known about developmental outcomes in midlife of persons who were placed in out-of-home care (OHC) in childhood. Utilizing longitudinal Swedish data from a cohort of more than 14,000 individuals who we can follow from birth (1953) to the age of 55 (2008), this study examines midlife trajectories of social, economic, and health-related disadvantages with a specific focus on the complexity, timing, and duration of disadvantage in individuals with and without childhood experience of OHC. Roughly half of the OHC alumni did not have disadvantaged outcomes in midlife. However, experience of OHC was associated with a two-fold risk for various forms of permanent disadvantage, net of confounding factors. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed.
... This introduces variation in the probability that an individual case at a fixed level of evidence of guilt will be prosecuted, convicted or jailed. This approach has been used in previously (see e.g., Doyle 2007;Chang, Theodore et al. 2008;Doyle 2008;Hjalmarsson 2009;Green and Winik 2010). ...
Article
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This study assesses why some individuals are rearrested for driving while intoxicated (DWI). Using longitudinal data from North Carolina containing information on arrests and arrest outcomes, we test hypotheses that individuals prosecuted and convicted of DWI are less likely to be rearrested for DWI. We allow for possible endogeneity of prosecution and conviction outcomes by using instrumental variables for the prosecutor’s prosecution rate and the judge’s conviction rate. With a three-year follow-up, the probability of DWI rearrest was reduced by 6.6% if the person was prosecuted for DWI and, for those prosecuted, by 24.5% if convicted on this charge. Prosecution and conviction for DWI deters rearrest for DWI.
... That is, the average number of consultation visits the counsellor provides her other clients, is used as an instrument for a given farm's number of consultation visits. A similar identifying strategy is used in for example Dahl et al. (forthcoming), who use random assignment of judges in disability insurance cases, and Doyle (2008) who use random assignment of investigators in foster care placements. ...
Article
This article analyzes the effects of extension services regarding the use of nutrients in Swedish agriculture on nutrient balances and farms’ finances. The key to our research design is that extension visits vary between agents (some agents give more consultation than others), which leads to random variation in “treatment.” We find that the service affects nutrient utilization, which possibly reduces leakages and eutrophication in the Baltic Sea. A large and positive impact on farms value added implies that the net benefit from the extension services is positive. The improvements are mainly due to better land management practices so that more efficient use of fertilizers increases crop production and thereby decreases the nitrogen balance.
... For examples, see Rubin et al. 2007;Rubin et al. 2004;Garbarino et al. 1992;Doyle 2007;Jonson-Reid and Barth 2000a;2000b;Main and Hesse (1990). ...
Article
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There is a surprising dearth of information about the services provided to the children and families being reported to Canadian child welfare authorities, little research on the efficacy of child welfare services in Canada, and limited evidence of new policies and programs designed to address these changes. This paper reports on a research capacity building initiative designed to address some of these issues. By fostering mutual co-operation and sharing of intellectual leadership, the Building Research Capacity initiative allows partners to innovate, build institutional capacity and mobilize research knowledge in accessible ways. The model rests on the assumption that by placing the university’s research infrastructure at the service of community agencies, robust research partnerships are developed, access to agency-based research is significantly enhanced and community agencies make better use of research findings which all equate in greater research utilization and research capacity building.
... The closest genre of research is that of children in foster care. There is evidence that removing children from their family of origin to foster care is associated with negative developmental sequelae (Curtis et al., 2001), adult criminality in particular (Doyle, 2008;Lindquist and Santavirta, 2012). Boys are more vulnerable than girls, and the earlier that the re-placement takes place, the better the outcome. ...
Article
Purpose – During Second World War 48,628 Finnish children were evacuated to Sweden and temporarily placed in foster care. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between the parental socioeconomic position (SEP), evacuation, language acquisition, and education and to analyze how these are related to SEP in separated compared to non-separated in later life. Design/methodology/approach – The sample consists of 749 separated and 1,535 non-separated persons. Pre-evacuation data on the separated were collected from the archives. The non-separated were matched for age, gender, place of birth, and mother tongue Finnish/Swedish. Data from both cohorts were collected by a postal questionnaire in autumn 2005. Stratified hierarchical regression analysis was used to predict SEP. Findings – The results show that the SEP and education of those Finnish-speaking evacuees who had lost their mother tongue when returning home were lower compared to the Finnish-speaking non-evacuees. On the contrary, the SEP of the Swedish-speaking evacuees was higher than of the Swedish-speaking non-evacuees. Research limitations/implications – Selection bias and attrition bias is a concern when interpreting the results. Practical implications – The study shows the importance of supporting the mother tongue of temporary migrants while staying in the host country and of taking actions for language policy planning when they return back home. Originality/value – This study uses data on a large child evacuation operation during Second World War to study how unaccompanied evacuation and loss of mother tongue affect SEP in later life. To the knowledge no such study has been conducted.
... Consider, for example, the response of the child welfare system relative to the criminal justice system to a report of parental violence. While entry into the child welfare system is no panacea for children (Bartholet 1999;Doyle 2007Doyle , 2008), children's best interests are front and center within the social welfare model (at least in theory). In contrast, the criminal justice system is not required to consider the impact of a parent's incarceration or treatment needs on children; indeed, consideration of these factors would likely violate a number of important sentencing principles, break several laws, and arguably create more problems than it would solve. ...
Article
Prior research on the consequences of imprisonment for the family suggest that incarceration of so-called petty offenders is most harmful for families, yet few studies provide a clear description of who is and is not a petty offender and how best to make such distinctions. We compare various ways of categorizing inmates (using preprison family involvement and characteristics related to criminality and child well-being) to better understand heterogeneity in the consequences of paternal incarceration for children. In our analysis, we find that differentiating between “harmful” and “helpful” fathers is rather difficult, and reform efforts that are overly reliant on criminal offense categories may not be the most gainful policy approach in terms of benefit to children. We also describe a small population of children who appear to benefit from paternal incarceration: children of fathers with severe substance abuse problems. The pattern of results suggests that providing alternative interventions to incarceration, rather than no intervention at all, is critical to improving outcomes for all children of incarcerated parents. © 2016, © 2016 by The American Academy of Political and Social Science.
... However, a large body of research documents that individuals who spent time in OHP as children are disproportionately likely to be incarcerated as adults. In the most rigorous study to date, Doyle (2008) used an instrumental variables strategy-identified by random variation in assignment to CPS caseworkers with varying propensities for child removal-to estimate the causal effects of OHP on criminal justice system involvement and incarceration and finds them to be large. However, this evidence relates only to OHP. ...
Article
The prevalence of incarceration in the United States is increasingly well known. The prevalence of family involvement with child protective services (CPS) is less understood, though, and there is limited research examining links between incarceration and CPS involvement. Here, we describe the incidence and prevalence of incarceration and CPS involvement in the United States and outline reasons that the same individuals and families may be at risk for involvement in both systems. We then use unique longitudinal data from Wisconsin to describe intergenerational and intragenerational overlap in the two systems. Specifically, we calculate (1) the proportion of all CPS-involved children who have an incarcerated parent; (2) the proportion of incarcerated adults who have a CPS-involved child; (3) the proportion of incarcerated young men and women who were involved in the CPS system as adolescents; and (4) the proportion of CPS-involved adolescents who subsequently became incarcerated. We conclude with a discussion of directions for future research and implications for practice and policy. © 2016, © 2016 by The American Academy of Political and Social Science.
... For examples, see Rubin et al. 2007;Rubin et al. 2004;Garbarino et al. 1992;Doyle 2007;Jonson-Reid and Barth 2000a;2000b;Main and Hesse (1990). ...
Article
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Child protection is one of the fastest growing service sectors in Canada, yet we know surprisingly little about the effectiveness of these services. This article presents a provincial university-agency knowledge partnership aimed to better understand the dynamics of child protection services. For exemplary purposes, the results of a service outcome indicator on out-of-home placement will be reported along with province-wide secondary analyses examining when and for whom out-of-home placement is most likely to occur.
... A long row of large-sample studies from many western countries have consistently shown that young adults with a childhood history of foster care or involvement with child welfare authorities have high risks for a multitude of problems, compared to peers. Examples are low educational attainment (Jackson & Cameron, 2011;Pecora et al., 2006;Vinnerljung, Öman, & Gunnarson, 2005), criminality (Doyle, 2008;Mersky & Janczewski, 2013;Vinnerljung, Berlin, & Hjern, 2010), substance abuse (Christoffersen & Soothill, 2003;von Borczykowski, Vinnerljung, & Hjern, 2013), premature death (Hjern, Vinnerljung, & Lindblad, 2004;Kalland, Pensola, Meriläinen, & Sinkk, 2001), and suicidal behavior (Berlin, Vinnerljung, & Hjern, 2011;Vinnerljung, Hjern, & Lindblad, 2006). The rates of health problems, especially in the area of psychiatric morbidity, are extreme when compared to majority population peers (Anctil, McCubbin, O'Brien, Pecora, & Anderson-Harumi, 2007;Vinnerljung & Hjern, 2014;Vinnerljung & Sallnäs, 2008;Vinnerljung et al., 2006Vinnerljung et al., , 2010Zlotnick, Tam, & Soman, 2012). ...
Article
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Using longitudinal register data on all persons born in Sweden 1973–1978, we report on prevalence of disability pension among young adults who were child welfare clients during their formative years, and explore risk factors for this long-term outcome. For most child welfare subgroups, prevalence approached or exceeded ten percent. Multivariate logistic regression analyses found high crude odds ratios of disability pension among child welfare alumni. These were substantially reduced – but not obliterated – after adjustments for a host of background factors. Decomposition analyses revealed that child welfare alumni’s poor school performance and low educational attainment accounted for most of the confounding effects. We also found that child welfare clients with a disability pension had far higher rates of psychosocial problems in their adult lives than other peers with a disability pension. Child welfare alumni should be regarded as a high risk group for future disability pension and for permanent exclusion from the labor market. Rates of suicidal behavior in adult age were extreme among some subgroups of child welfare alumni with a disability pension, which should be communicated to agencies who are likely to meet these groups (eg. primary health care).
... Foster care providers who are unaware of these disorders or lack the resources to parent these types of children, not uncommonly return them to child services for another placement. In effect, by failing to identify the extent of maltreatment related trauma or childhood and adolescent disorders, the negative impact of the original trauma is compounded because of the continuing experience of "familial" rejection and related emotional/physical disruptions resulting from multiple placements (Doyle, 2007;Jonson-Reid & Barth, 2000;Newton et al., 2000). An accompanying treatment concern is the need to provide continuing housing, income, and employment assistance along with mental health services for the period of transition from late adolescence to early adulthood (Courtney & Heuring, 2005). ...
Article
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One of the lesser understood research issues about antisocial onset and persistence is whether there are different patterns of risk factors within the broader identified pathways that require distinctive treatment strategies. This article hypothesizes that there are at least five distinct pathways to persistent antisocial behaviour. The pathways are premised upon the developmental perspective and suggest that the experiences of individuals and their exposure to subsequent risk factors are affected by the earliest risk factors to which the individual is exposed. From a policy perspective, development of these pathways focuses on the goal of preventing antisocial onset, or to reduce the likelihood that behaviours will become progressively antisocial, while concurrently encouraging desistance. A key objective is to inform policy-makers about possible program intervention points for specific sets of risk factors, utilizing programs that have already been identified as successful, and developing new experimental programs.
... We do this separately for each claimant, based on the observed choices of treatment for all other claimants registering in the same local treatment environment. Our methodological approach is similar in spirit to the one used by Duggan (2005) to characterize psychiatrists' propensities to prescribe particular drugs, by Doyle (2008) to characterize child protection investigators' propensities to place children in foster care, by Markussen et al. (2012) to characterize physicians' propensities to impose activity requirements on sick-listed workers, and by Dean et al. (2014) to study the impacts of vocational rehabilitation. The basic idea is to make predictions about how persons are going to be treated by some decision-maker on the basis of knowledge about the same decision-maker's treatment of others. ...
Article
Based on local variations in vocational rehabilitation (VR) priorities, we examine the impacts of alternative VR programs on short- and long-term labor market outcomes for temporary disability insurance (TDI) claimants in Norway. The analysis builds on rich and detailed administrative registers covering 345,000 claimants. We find that a strategy focusing on rapid placement in the regular labor market is superior to alternative strategies giving higher priority to vocational training or sheltered employment. Strategies prioritizing subsidized regular education also tend to be relatively successful in terms of final outcomes, but at the cost of protracted periods of benefit dependency first.
Preprint
Estimates in judge designs run the risk of being biased due to the many judge identities that are implicitly or explicitly used as instrumental variables. The usual method to analyse judge designs, via a leave-out mean instrument, eliminates this many instrument bias only in case the data are clustered in at most one dimension. What is left out in the mean defines this clustering dimension. How most judge designs cluster their standard errors, however, implies that there are additional clustering dimensions, which makes that a many instrument bias remains. We propose two estimators that are many instrument bias free, also in multidimensional clustered judge designs. The first generalises the one dimensional cluster jackknife instrumental variable estimator, by removing from this estimator the additional bias terms due to the extra dependence in the data. The second models all but one clustering dimensions by fixed effects and we show how these numerous fixed effects can be removed without introducing extra bias. A Monte-Carlo experiment and the revisitation of two judge designs show the empirical relevance of properly accounting for multidimensional clustering in estimation.
Thesis
The aim of my thesis is to apply empirical methods to investigate corporate finance questions. In the first chapter, I investigate an unexplored role of venture capital (VC) investors on innovation: the potential value-add of due-diligence for firms involved in failed VC fundraising campaigns— i.e., startups that do not receive investment from the VC doing due diligence. We show that assignment to due-diligence leads to substantial increases in startup growth within two years of application, even for firms involved in failed fundraising campaigns. This new evidence implies that VCs' role in innovation affects many more firms than existing research has fully recognized, as it goes beyond their value-added effects on the portfolio companies in which they invest. In the second chapter, I collected a novel data set of the local planning applications in London and measure the quality of government by the speed of processing applications. I show causal evidence that the quality of local government can affect the households and firms’ activities in housing markets and borrowing behaviors. The effects arise because the timing of property development is important to households and firms. The delay in planning permission will lead them to abandon the project and change behaviors in housing markets and borrowing. In the third chapter, I study the purchasing behaviors of council governments in England and the impacts on the supplier firms. Due to political motivations, council governments’ purchasing patterns and procurement contract terms with local firms are different from that with nonlocal firms. Consequently, selling more goods and services to the local council government relative to other council governments results in more corporate investment.
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Article
We estimate the effects of legalized recreational marijuana on entry into the foster‐care system. Exploiting state‐level variation in legalization and its timing, we estimate that legalization decreases foster‐care placements by at least 10%, with larger effects in years after legalization, and for admissions for reasons of parental drug and alcohol abuse, physical abuse, neglect, and parental incarceration. Our findings imply that legalization may have important consequences for child welfare, and that substitution toward marijuana from other substances can be an important part of how legalization affects admissions.
Article
The pairwise overlaps in system involvement between child protective services (CPS), mental health services and the criminal justice system are well-documented. Yet, less is known about how contact to these three systems evolves as children age, and how children’s trajectories through these institutions should be conceptualised. In this article, we use administrative data on the full population of Danish children born 1982–1995 that had contact to at least one of the three systems before turning twenty-one. Theoretically, we argue that children’s trajectories of institutional contacts can be understood as a moral career as suggested by Goffman. Empirically, we study how children move between and are retained within the three systems across childhood. We find that early contact originates with CPS but branch out through both overlap and transitions to the other systems. Further, across age, there are high levels of retention within the systems, and clear gendered dynamics play out as children age. We argue that children’s trajectories across age can be viewed as moving from a position as a subject at risk to a position as subject of risk.
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Do deals with debt collectors alleviate consumer financial distress? Using new data linking court and credit registry records, we examine civil collection lawsuits where consumers can settle out of court. Random assignment of judges with different styles generates exogenous variation in the likelihood of settlement negotiations. We find that settlements increase financial distress relative to going to court, likely by draining consumers of liquidity. The effect is stronger among less financially literate consumers. Survey evidence suggests that consumers generally overestimate how much they would pay through the court system. Perceived nonpecuniary benefits also motivate some consumers to settle.
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Objective: Foster family care is associated with adverse short- and long-term consequences for the child. A systematic review was conducted on interventions for foster children and foster careers. Method: A comprehensive search process was used to find eligible interventions evaluated in randomized controlled trials or quasi-experimental studies. The quality of studies was assessed with GRADE, and effects were synthesized using meta-analytic methods. Results: In all, 28 publications of 18 interventions, including 5,357 children, were identified. Only three specific interventions had sufficient confidence of evidence. No study had examined tools for foster parent selection nor had evaluated preservice programs related to outcomes. Discussion: These analyses provide new insights and hope into the field of systematic interventions in foster care. The overall results indicate that it is possible to improve eight outcomes but cannot point out which programs are superior. Ethically, social care organizations should systematically collect knowledge about effects and side effects.
Article
Children inhabit a world of violence — oft times casual, occasionally horrific. In the United States, we often think of these experiences as moments of pain inflicted by others in “safe” places — home, school, neighborhood — although we seldom acknowledge the violence enacted by those enforcing public or private authority. The violence of everyday justice is pervasive in obvious displays of state power through criminal sanctioning or in acquiescence to the commands of civil authority. In even subtler ways, however, violence also undergirds the very actions the state takes to protect children. It is not the threatened loss of custody experienced by parents that is the focus of this essay (although that is a very real exercise of state violence), but the pain and loss experienced by children who are removed from their homes, schools, and communities under the guise of paternalism. Illuminating the violence of paternalism is crucial to ending its practice.
Technical Report
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In this report we study the effects of government financing policies aimed at promoting value creation and innovation. Our analysis includes the tax incentive scheme, Skattefunn (SKF), innovation-oriented policy of Innovation Norway (IN) and instruments of the Research Council of Norway (RCN), as well as export supporting programs by the Norwegian Export Credit Guarantee Agency (GIEK) and Export Credit Norway. IN is a government agency that aims to promote firm growth through innovation programs, regional support and other industrial policies. In our analysis we focus only on IN’s innovation programs. RCN finances research and development (R&D) both in universities and institutes and in private firms. Our analysis comprises only the policy instruments oriented towards the private sector or joint projects between private firms and research institutions. SKF is a general tax incentive scheme provided in the tax legislation. We compare profitability and growth in sales, value added, employment and productivity in firms that received support from IN, RCN or SKF during the period 2001-2013 with a control group of firms that did not receive such support. Further, we calculate the return on R&D investments for firms, which receive government support, and compare it with the return on R&D for firms without any public R&D-support. We also investigate the impact of government support on the propensity to patent, and the effect of export guarantees and export credit on export. We find positive effects for IN, RCN and SKF on one or several indicators of growth in value creation, sales income or number of employees, and the effects become stronger as the amount of support increases. However, our findings do not necessarily reflect a causal relationship. Even if we control for some sources of bias it is not possible to control for every unobservable factor that simultaneously may affect both the probability of receiving support and the outcome variables. We find the most significant effects for the group of projects which receive government support above 1.5 million NOK. We find weak or no effects for support allocations below 500 000 NOK. Neither do we find positive effects on return to total assets or productivity for firms receiving support compared with the control group. The return on R&D investment in firms receiving government support is lower than the return on R&D that is entirely privately financed. This is consistent with the fact that government support is channelled to projects believed to have positive effects beyond the purely commercial. The results show that both tax deductions (SKF) and direct subsidies from RCN and IN lead to more patents in Norwegian firms. We find positive effects of export financing on Norwegian export. The results indicate that export financing contributes to growth in value creation in the business sectors that use government support schemes intensively.
Article
When children come to the attention of the child welfare system, they become involved in a decision-making process in which decisions are made that have a significant effect on their future and well-being. The decision to remove children from their families is particularly complex; yet surprisingly little is understood about this decision-making process. This paper presents the results of a study to develop an instrument to explore, at the caseworker level, the context of the removal decision, with the objective of understanding the influence of the individual and organizational factors on this decision, drawing from the Decision Making Ecology as the underlying rationale for obtaining the measures. The instrument was based on the development of decision-making scales used in prior decision-making studies and administered to child protection caseworkers in several states. Analyses included reliability analyses, principal components analyses, and inter-correlations among the resulting scales. For one scale regarding removal decisions, a principal components analysis resulted in the extraction of two components, jointly identified as caseworkers' decision-making orientation, described as (1) an internal reference to decision-making and (2) an external reference to decision-making. Reliability analyses demonstrated acceptable to high internal consistency for 9 of the 11 scales. Full details of the reliability analyses, principal components analyses, and inter-correlations among the seven scales are discussed, along with implications for practice and the utility of this instrument to support the understanding of decision-making in child welfare. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Placement in child protection services, or becoming a child in care, is associated with a disproportionate involvement in youth and adult criminal justice systems. While there is not extensive research on this relationship, there is evidence that many children in care have risk profiles consistent with criminal justice involvement. This article provides an overview of the prevalence of exposure to risk factors related to mental health, education, and antisocial behaviour among children in care, in addition to risk factors that are distinctive to those placed in child protection services. A recent large cohort dataset from British Columbia, Canada, is utilized to examine these risk profiles. Recommendations to identify those involved in child protection services most at risk for criminal justice involvement, with the use of risk management instruments such as the Cracow Instrument, are discussed. In addition, several other important policy themes regarding diagnostic and case management challenges are explored.
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This study exploits the sibling structure of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data to measure the degree to which family background explains the variance in the propensity to engage in criminal activities and in the intensity and success of crime participation as measured by the level of criminal earnings. A multiple-equation model whose reduced form disturbances are connected by a common unobservable variable having a variance-components structure is developed and estimated. Estimation results indicate a high level of association (net of observable measures of family background) between the unobserved factors affecting siblings' propensity to engage in criminal activities in a family, with estimated intra-family correlations ranging from 0.44 to 0.55. Sharing a common family background explains around 25% of the variance of the unconditional criminal income. The results suggest that ignoring family background effects leads to a significant upward bias in the effects of race and education on the propensity to engage in income-generating crime.
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Rates of placement disruption in traditional and treatment foster care are reviewed. Contextual factors, individual child and caregiver characteristics, and risk factors thought to influence rates of placement disruption are explored. A model for treatment foster care is described, and data are presented on disruption rates for this program. The results indicated that the likelihood of placement disruption is two times higher during the first 6 months (17.8%) compared to the second 6 months (9.2%) of treatment.Taken together across the first and second 6 months of treatment, 23 of 90 youth (25.5%) experienced a placement disruption. Findings indicate that age and gender play a role in disruption, with older girls at the greatest risk for placement disruption. Limitations of the study, future directions,and implications for treatment are discussed.
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Child welfare services have multiple goals, including child protection, family continuity, and achievement of legal permanency so children can end their involvement with child welfare services and have a lifetime family. These goals are not all achievable to the same extent in all cases. American child welfare policy has, in the last few years, become more definitive about the priority of child protection above family preservation. Now, situations which involve safety risks that are too great do not require any efforts at reunifying children to their biological homes. Less clear in American child welfare policy and practice is the value to be placed on other factors – particularly when a child cannot return home and will need an alternative adoptive family. Practitioners often emphasize family continuity– that is, the opportunity to maintain contact with the biological parent and extended family members – as a key decision making consideration. Yet, family continuity does not necessarily predict a successful transition to adulthood that is healthy for children or provides social benefits to the community. This paper explores the rationale for expanding child welfare decision making criteria by adding longer-term outcomes and the likelihood that children will eventually generate social benefits.
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This report presents the results of a study that uses state administrative data to analyze employment, earnings, and public assistance receipt among former Wisconsin foster youth who exited out-of-home care between January 1, 1992, and December 31, 1998, and who were at least 17 years old at the time of their exit. Our results suggest that former foster youth who had aged out of care or had been discharged to independent living earned significantly more during the first eight quarters after they were discharged from care than those who had been reunified, placed with relatives, or adopted; as a result, their total income was also significantly higher. These findings are consistent with what one would expect if former foster youth who had aged out of care or had been discharged to independent living were, in fact, living on their own and having to support themselves, while those who had been reunified, placed with relatives, or adopted were being supported by the families with whom they were living. We also found that former foster youth who had run away or been transferred to an institution were employed in significantly fewer quarters and earned significantly less during the first eight quarters after they were discharged from care than those who had been reunified, placed with relatives, or adopted; again, their lower earnings were reflected in significantly lower total income as well.
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This paper presents an updated cost-benefit analysis of the High/Scope Perry preschool Program, using data on individuals aged 40. Children were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group. Program costs are compared against treatment impacts on educational resources, earnings, criminal activity, and welfare receipt. Net present values are calculated for participants, the general public, and society. The treatment group obtains significantly higher earnings. For the general public, higher tax revenues, lower criminal justice system expenditures, and lower welfare payments easily outweigh program costs; they repay 12.90forevery12.90 for every 1 invested. However, program gains come mainly from reduced crime by males.
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We compared the rates of mental health problems in children in foster care across three counties in California. A total of 267 children, ages 0 to 17, were assessed two to four months after entry into foster care using a behavioral screening checklist, a measure of self-concept and, in one county, an adaptive behavior survey. Results confirmed previous research and indicated consistently high rates of mental health problems across the three counties. Behavior problems in the clinical or borderline range of the CBCL were observed at two and a half times the rate expected in a community population. Fewer children fell within the clinical range on the self-concept measure. No significant differences in rates between the three county foster care cohorts were observed, despite the different demographic characteristics of the counties. On the adaptive behavior scale, the mean scores for children in foster care were more than one standard deviation below the norm. Our findings suggest that the most important mental health screening issue with children in foster care is to identify what specific mental health problems need to be addressed so that the most effective treatment services can be provided.
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This book reviews the findings of 29 studies published between 1960 and 1992 on the impact of childhood out-of-home care on adults' self-sufficiency, adjustment, family and social support, and personal well-being. Section 1, "Out-of-Home Care and Out-of-Home Care Studies," introduces the study and presents the history of out-of-home care in the United States. Section 2, "Methodology," details the conceptual framework; differentiates descriptive, trend, and evaluative studies; and describes the method used to identify and judge the design adequacy of out-of-home care studies. Section 3, "Findings," presents the findings on outcomes of out-of-home care. The results indicate that, in comparison to those not receiving childhood out-of-home care, adults placed in childhood out-of-home care had poorer school performance; higher rates of school dropout, public assistance, homelessness, arrest, and chemical dependency; lower marriage rates; and poorer mental and physical health. They typically maintain contact with at least one biological family member, have reasonable social support systems, and do not differ from the general population in unemployment rate. Factors associated with outcomes include the type of placement, reason for admission, age at placement and discharge, number of placements, time in care, disposition, caseworker activity, and contact and closeness with biological and foster families. Section 4, "Summary and Conclusions," summarizes the outcomes experienced, discusses factors associated with outcomes of out-of-home care, and offers recommendations for future research and program and policy development. Appendices summarize outcome studies of out-of-home care in tabular and narrative form and summarize studies relating out-of-home care to homelessness. (Contains about 80 references.) (KDFB)
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Delineates a foster care research agenda that includes improvement of data available for foster care research; permanency planning; multiple services used by foster children; epidemiology of foster care; bonding of children with foster parents; outcomes of foster care; mental health service provision to foster children; relationship of service characteristics to foster care outcomes; system studies; and kinship foster care. (TJQ)
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In response to the question of how research can contribute to the recently intensified reexamination of family reunification services in public as well as private child welfare agencies, this article reviews research findings from related studies, delineates knowledge gaps and issues, and identifies emerging research priorities. (TJQ)
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Risk assessment in child protective services (CPS) is a complex process involving judgment of the adequacy of the physical home environment and the current psychological and emotional status of children and families to estimate the likelihood of child maltreatment. The study reported in this article gathered data from CPS workers and supervisors to test two basic measurement properties of a set of risk assessment scales: internal consistency and interrater reliability. The research design asked the subjects to read a randomly selected set of three case vignettes and to rate levels of risk using the risk assessment scales. The rating patterns suggest that the scales have adequate levels of internal consistency and interrater reliability. Depending on the results of a test of predictive validity, the scales appear to have the potential for improving the consistency of worker judgments regarding risk potential to children.
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This paper identifies several priorities for organizing research that is needed to significantly improve the prospects for children in out-of-home care. These priorities include (1) program evaluation research on services provided to children in out-of-home care, (2) organizational studies of various aspects of the child welfare system and the relationships between child welfare services and other systems, (3) research on child welfare decision making, (4) examination of the role of race and ethnicity in outcomes of care, (5) attention to recurring methodological issues. Accomplishing this research agenda will most likely require a sustained federal commitment to funding research on out-of-home care.
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This article introduces a new class of instrumental variable (IV) estimators for linear and nonlinear treatment response models with covariates. The rationale for focusing on nonlinear models is that, if the dependent variable is binary or limited, or if the effect of the treatment varies with covariates, a nonlinear model is appropriate. In the spirit of Roehrig (Econometrica 56 (1988) 433), identification is attained nonparametrically and does not depend on the choice of the parametric specification for the response function of interest. One virtue of this approach is that it allows the researcher to construct estimators that can be interpreted as the parameters of a well-defined approximation to a treatment response function under functional form misspecification. In contrast to some usual IV models, heterogeneity of treatment effects is not restricted by the identification conditions. The ideas and estimators in this article are illustrated using IV to estimate the effects of 401(k) retirement programs on savings.
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The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) demonstration assigned housing vouchers via random lottery to public housing residents in five cities. We use the exogenous variation in residential locations generated by MTO to estimate neighborhood effects on youth crime and delinquency. The offer to relocate to lower-poverty areas reduces arrests among female youth for violent and property crimes, relative to a control group. For males the offer to relocate reduces arrests for violent crime, at least in the short run, but increases problem behaviors and property crime arrests. The gender difference in treatment effects seems to reflect differences in how male and female youths from disadvantaged backgrounds adapt and respond to similar new neighborhood environments.
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Despite widespread belief that violence begets violence, methodological problems substantially restrict knowledge of the long-term consequences of childhood victimization. Empirical evidence for this cycle of violence has been examined. Findings from a cohort study show that being abused or neglected as a child increases one's risk for delinquency, adult criminal behavior, and violent criminal behavior. However, the majority of abused and neglected children do not become delinquent, criminal, or violent. Caveats in interpreting these findings and their implications are discussed in this article.
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We examine the effects of family background variables and neighborhood peers on the behaviors of inner-city youths in a tight labor market using data from the 1989 NBER survey of youths living in low-income Boston neighborhoods. We find that family adult behaviors are strongly related to analogous youth behaviors. The links between the behavior of older family members and youths are important for criminal activity, drug and alcohol use, childbearing out of wedlock, schooling, and church attendance. We also find that the behaviors of neighborhood peers appear to substantially affect youth behaviors in a manner suggestive of contagion models of neighborhood effects. Residence in a neighborhood in which a large proportion of other youths are involved in crime is associated with a substantial increase in an individual's probability of the being involved in crime. Significant neighborhood peer effects are also apparent for drug and alcohol use, church attendance, and the propensity of youths to be out of school and out of work. Our results indicate that family and peer influences both operate in manner such that "like begets like."
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Child maltreatment, which includes both child abuse and child neglect, is a major social problem. This paper focuses on measuring the effects of child maltreatment on crime using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). We focus on crime because it is one of the most socially costly potential outcomes of maltreatment, and because the proposed mechanisms linking maltreatment and crime are relatively well elucidated in the literature. Our work addresses many limitations of the existing literature on child maltreatment. First, we use a large national sample, and investigate different types of abuse in a similar framework. Second, we pay careful attention to identifying the causal impact of abuse, by using a variety of statistical methods that make differing assumptions. These methods include: Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), propensity score matching estimators, and twin fixed effects. Finally, we examine the extent to which the effects of maltreatment vary with socio-economic status (SES), gender, and the severity of the maltreatment. We find that maltreatment approximately doubles the probability of engaging in many types of crime. Low SES children are both more likely to be mistreated and suffer more damaging effects. Boys are at greater risk than girls, at least in terms of increased propensity to commit crime. Sexual abuse appears to have the largest negative effects, perhaps justifying the emphasis on this type of abuse in the literature. Finally, the probability of engaging in crime increases with the experience of multiple forms of maltreatment as well as the experience of Child Protective Services (CPS) investigation.
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The application of nonlinear fixed effects models in econometrics has often been avoided for two reasons, one methodological, one practical. The methodological question centers on a incidental parametres problem that raises questions about the statistical properties of the estimator. The practical one relates to the difficulty of estimating nonlinear models with possibly thousands of coefficients. This note will demonstrate that the second is in fact, a nonissue, and that in a very large number models of interest to practioners, estimation of the fixed effects model is quite feasible even in panels with huge numbers of groups.
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Little is known about the effects of placing children who are abused or neglected into foster care. This paper uses the placement tendency of child protection investigators as an instrumental variable to identify causal effects of foster care on long-term outcomes—including juvenile delinquency, teen motherhood, and employment— among children in Illinois where a rotational assignment process effectively randomizes families to investigators. Large marginal treatment effect estimates suggest caution in the interpretation, but the results suggest that children on the margin of placement tend to have better outcomes when they remain at home, especially older children. (JEL H75, I38, J13)
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This paper estimates effects of increases in incarceration length on employment and earnings prospects of individuals after their release from prison. I utilize a variety of research designs including controlling for observable factors and using instrumental variables for incarceration length based on randomly assigned judges with different sentencing propensities. The results show no consistent evidence of adverse labor market consequences of longer incarceration length using any of the analytical methods in either the state system in Florida or the federal system in California. (JEL: J24; K42)
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This paper examines the short-term effect of school on juvenile crime. To do so, we bring together daily measures of criminal activity and detailed school calendar information from 29 jurisdictions across the country, and utilize the plausibly exogenous variation generated by teacher in-service days. We find that the level of property crime committed by juveniles decreases by 14 percent on days when school is in session, but the level of violent crime increases by 28 percent on such days. Our findings suggest that both incapacitation and concentration influence juvenile crime.
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Previous empirical studies have uncovered little evidence that police reduce crime, possibly due to simultaneity problems. This paper uses the timing of mayoral and gubernatorial elections as an instrument variable to identify a causal effect of police on crime. Increases in the size of police forces are shown to be disproportionately concentrated in mayoral and gubernatorial election years. Increases in police are shown to substantially reduce violent crime but have a smaller impact on property crime. The null hypothesis that the marginal social benefit of reduced crime equals the costs of hiring additional police cannot be rejected. Copyright 1997 by American Economic Association.