How does growing up in a residential area with many juvenile delinquents affect their risk of juvenile delinquency? Does it increase their risk of juvenile delinquency?
In general, it is hard to measure the effects of growing up in a residential area with many juvenile delinquents because it may well be the case that families in which the children face a high risk of juvenile delinquency have a higher tendency to settle in such local areas.
This selection problem does not exist in the specific case of children of refugees who were granted asylum in Denmark over the 1986-1998-period. The reason is that they did not choose where to settle in Denmark, but were placed in housing by the Danish Refugee Council.
The analysis examines whether children of refugees have a higher probability of being convicted of crime committed over the 15-21 age interval if they were – as children - assigned to housing in a municipality in which a high share of youth had been convicted of crime.