CrimeThis shows that one extra standard deviation of qualifications
(equivalent to say 2.5 years of schooling) reduces the number
of convictions by 0.06 (or by about 23% of the mean).
This is a useful, though small, addition to the other ben-
efits of education identified in Chapter 3. Online Annex 7
discusses even higher estimates of the effect of education in
reducing crime— obtained by exploiting differences in the
educational experience of different cohorts.^7
Educational performance in turn can be explained by
early child development. We have already explored this in
Chapter 3, but here we focus on educational failure and
bring in parallel evidence from the United States. For Brit-
ain we identify educational underperformance as equiva-
lent to having no qualifications. As Table 7.3 shows in col-
umn (1), bad behavior at 10 makes it more likely that you
Table 7.3. How the probability of educational failure is predicted by
childhood problems at age 10UnitsUK (BCS)
(Prob. of low
qualifications)USA (CNLSY)
(Prob. of high
school dropout)Intellectual
problems (age 10)
SD (index) 0.15 (.01) 0.06 (.01)Behavioral
problems (age 10)
SD (index) 0.04 (.01) 0.03 (.01)Emotional
problems (age 10)
SD (index) −0.02 (.01) −0.01 (.01)Note: The overall rate of education failure (as measured) is 26% in the UK
and 10% in the United States.