This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. ASSA Annual Meeting
  3. 2024
  4. Program
  5. Violence in the Family: Domestic Violence, Child Maltreatment and Public Policy
« Back to Results

Violence in the Family: Domestic Violence, Child Maltreatment and Public Policy

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM (CST)

Convention Center, 221D
Hosted By: American Economic Association
  • Chair: Anna Aizer, Brown University

Racial Discrimination in Child Protection

Jason Baron
,
Duke University
Joseph J. Doyle Jr.
,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Natalia Emanuel
,
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Peter Hull
,
Brown University
Joseph Ryan
,
University of Michigan

Abstract

Ten percent of Black children spend time in foster care—twice the rate of white
children—with widespread concerns that this disparity is due to racial discrimination.
We study the disparate impact of foster care placement decisions, as measured by
racial disparities in placement rates among children with the same potential for future
maltreatment. We account for the selective observability of future maltreatment
potential by leveraging the quasi-random assignment of cases to investigators. Using
administrative data from nearly 220,000 maltreatment investigations in Michigan
between 2008 and 2016, we find that Black children are 1.7 percentage points (50%)
more likely to be placed in foster care than white children with identical potential
for future maltreatment. This result is robust to different measures of maltreatment
potential and estimation strategies, and is not driven by observable case characteristics.
Disparate impact is concentrated among cases with high risk of future maltreatment in
the home, with Black children twice as likely to be placed in foster care compared
to white children (12% vs. 6%). Disparate impact is significantly larger among
investigators who are white, who see a lower share of cases involving Black children,
who are more experienced, and who have relatively high placement rates.

Deterrence or Backlash? Arrests and the Dynamics of Domestic Violence

Sofia Amaral
,
World Bank
Gordon Dahl
,
University of California-San Diego
Victoria Endl-Geyer
,
Ifo Institute
Timo Hener
,
Aarhus University
Helmut Rainer
,
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and Ifo Institute

Abstract

There is a vigorous debate on whether arrests for domestic violence (DV) will deter future abuse or create a retaliatory backlash. We study how arrests affect the dynamics of DV using administrative data for over 124,000 DV emergency calls (999 calls) for West Midlands, the second most populous county in England. We take advantage of conditional random assignment of officers to a case by call handlers, combined with systematic differences across police officers in their propensity to arrest suspected batterers. We find that an arrest reduces future DV calls in the ensuing year by 51%. This reduction is not driven by reduced reporting due to fear of retaliation, but instead a decline in repeat victimization. We reach this conclusion based on a threshold reporting model and its testable implications regarding (i) the severity of repeat DV calls and (ii) victim versus third-party reporting. Exploring mechanisms, we find that arrest virtually eliminates the large spike in re-victimization which occurs in the 48 hours after a call, consistent with arrest facilitating a cooling off period during a volatile, at-risk time. In the longer run, we estimate a sizeable deterrence effect. Substantiating this, arrest increases the probability an offender is charged with a crime. Our findings suggest that if the goal is to lower the number of domestic violence incidents, police should lower their threshold for arrest, not decriminalize domestic violence.

Criminal Charges, Risk Assessment, and Violent Recidivism in Cases of Domestic Abuse

Dan Black
,
University of Chicago
Jeffrey Grogger
,
University of Chicago
Tom Kirchmaier
,
London School of Economics
Koen Sanders
,
London School of Economics

Abstract

Domestic abuse is a pervasive global problem. Here we analyze two approaches to reducing violent DA recidivism. One involves charging the perpetrator with a crime; the other provides protective services to the victim on the basis of a formal risk assessment carried out by the police. We use detailed administrative data to estimate the average effect of treatment on the treated using inverse propensity-score weighting (IPW). We then make use of causal forests to study heterogeneity in the estimated treatment effects. We find that pressing charges substantially reduces the likelihood of violent recidivism. The analysis also reveals substantial heterogeneity in the effect of pressing charges. In contrast, the risk-assessment process has no discernible effect.

Can Early Interventions in Children and Families Reduce Child Maltreatment?

Anna Aizer
,
Brown University
Emilia Brito Rebolledo
,
Brown University

Abstract

Children with a disability are three times more likely to be abused or neglected than those without. We study whether the risk of future maltreatment declines when children with a disability receive early intervention services. In contrast with child welfare services which often engages in an adversarial way with families by threatening child removal, early intervention’s model is built on the premise of parental cooperation. The goal of early intervention is to teach parents how best to care for their children with disabilities. We find that the earlier a child receives such services, the less likely they are to be maltreated in the future. Specifically, if a child receives services 10 months earlier, the probability of future maltreatment declines by 15%. To rule out that children referred earlier for services differ in ways that predict maltreatment, we compare them with outcomes of children referred early and later but who were found to be ineligible for services in a difference in differences framework.

Discussant(s)
Eric Chyn
,
University of Texas-Austin
Mark Hoekstra
,
Baylor University
Emily Elizabeth Nix
,
University of Southern California
Katherine Rittenhouse
,
University of Texas-Austin
JEL Classifications
  • I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
  • J1 - Demographic Economics