Long-Term Effects of the Moving to Opportunity Residential Mobility Experiment on Crime and Delinquency

• NCJ Number: 245413
• Journal: Journal of Experimental Criminology Volume: 9 Issue: 4 Dated: December 2013 Pages: 451-489
• Author(s): Matthew Sciandra; Lisa Sanbonmatsu; Greg J. Duncan; Lisa A. Gennetian; Lawrence F. Katz; Ronald C. Kessler; Jeffrey R. Kling; Jens Ludwig
• Date Published: December 2013
• Length: 39 pages
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)

Annotation

This paper focuses on MTO youth ages 15-25 in 2001 (n = 4,643) and analyzes intention to treat effects on neighborhood characteristics and criminal behavior (number of violent- and property-crime arrests) through 10 years after randomization.

Abstract

Using data from a randomized experiment, to examine whether moving youth out of areas of concentrated poverty, where a disproportionate amount of crime occurs, prevents involvement in crime. The authors drew on new administrative data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment. MTO families were randomized into an experimental group offered a housing voucher that could only be used to move to a low-poverty neighborhood, a Section 8 housing group offered a standard housing voucher, and a control group. This paper focuses on MTO youth ages 15-25 in 2001 (n = 4,643) and analyzes intention to treat effects on neighborhood characteristics and criminal behavior (number of violent- and property-crime arrests) through 10 years after randomization. The authors found the offer of a housing voucher generates large improvements in neighborhood conditions that attenuate over time and initially generates substantial reductions in violent-crime arrests and sizable increases in property-crime arrests for experimental group males. The crime effects attenuate over time along with differences in neighborhood conditions. The findings suggest that criminal behavior is more strongly related to current neighborhood conditions (situational neighborhood effects) than to past neighborhood conditions (developmental neighborhood effects). The MTO design makes it difficult to determine which specific neighborhood characteristics are most important for criminal behavior. The administrative data analyses could be affected by differences across areas in the likelihood that a crime results in an arrest. Abstract published by arrangement with Springer.