Does intense probation monitoring of truants work? An empirical econometric analysis of its effect on school and individual attendance, grades, and behavior.

摘要

Although most economists agree that crime generally is down, many overlook that juvenile crime has increased during the past two decades. Cognizant of the connection between school truancy and crime, the Los Angeles County Probation Department instituted the Community Early Identification Program (CEIP), which uses a unique combination of California state statutes to combat truancy, and consists primarily of a six-month period of pre-offense monitoring of potential juvenile offenders.; After running between-group and fixed-effect regressions on the 1995--2000 attendance, grades, and behavioral data of the approximately 2000 students/year at each of two virtually-identical intermediate schools---one with CEIP---this paper argues that although CEIP had only limited positive effects on the grades and behavior of the approximately 500 supervised individuals, its school effects on attendance and truancies were significant.