Predicting recidivism of juvenile offenders

Abstract

This study uses a large data set to analyze and predict recidivism of juvenile offenders in Pennsylvania. We employ a split-population duration model to determine the effect of covariates on (1) the probability of failure, defined as a second referral to juvenile court, and (2) the time to failure, given that it occurs. A test of the predictive power of our estimates finds a false positive rate of 18.5% and a false negative rate of 20.7%, which compares favorably to the performance of other models in the literature.